the cryptocurrency market continues to grow

Reece Walsh is tearing up the NRL. Can he be stopped?

If you want to learn a little about the rugby league lexicon, the best time is when a ball is kicked high into the air, and breathless players need to chase it quickly.

Before the first State of Origin match this year, Brad Fittler and his staff have NSW working on their kick chase in a crucial training session. It’s common for teams to yell out names of opposition players they’re due to play that week, a sharpening of the senses before the real stuff happens.

Rugby league defences have been trying to get Reece Walsh all year - and few seemed to have figured it out.

“We talk about a once-in-a-generation player, we might be looking at once in a lifetime player,” says Immortal Andrew Johns. “He’s got it all. Teams have tried to get at him, and he takes it - and with swagger too.”

But why has the Queensland and Broncos fullback turned into one of the most exhilarating players in the NRL?

From a team that embarrassingly collapsed in the final month of last season to miss the finals, the addition of Walsh - and a little more experience for the nucleus of their squad - has made the Broncos premiership threats this year. Walsh is a shoo-in for the best buy of the year.

It might be too simplistic to say his speed has been a massive reason he has transformed Brisbane’s attack. Then again, it might not be.

Walsh, 21, has turned into the NRL’s best exponent of exposing defenders by rushing to their outside, targeting halves and centres who don’t have the speed to match him. In turn, it has created space for his outside men with Walsh (22) trailing only Cody Walker (27), Nicho Hynes (27) and Scott Drinkwater (26) for line-break assists this year.

Johns says a lot of NRL teams are using a defensive method called “Double D”, where a defender will try to cover a lead runner as well as an intended receiver out the back. If the ball doesn’t go to the man running the first line, then they try to scramble to counter the ball receiver out the back. But Walsh’s speed makes the task impossible.

“It doesn’t matter how quick you are, you can’t get there [against Walsh],” Johns says.

“We saw in Origin III [when Walsh was suspended], AJ Brimson is a great young player, but he doesn’t have the acceleration coming around on those block plays. What the acceleration does, it opens up the three-on-two overlap, but it also puts pressure on the defence of the back-rower and half, or the four-man and three-man [in from the sideline].

“The only way to shut him down is you have to be aggressive and the centre and winger have to jam every time.”

Walsh’s first NRL game in Broncos colours came against the Cowboys in round two, and it was immediate the impact he would have on Kevin Walters’ side. He set up two tries by eyeballing defenders, then angling or stepping to their outside, forcing other defenders to engage with him.

“His quickness is something I haven’t seen since James Roberts,” says Roger Fabri, the sprint coach who works with dozens of NRL players. “He’s unbeatable. If there was a race over 20 metres, he would be unbeatable.

“He’s in the classic category: he’s not fast, he’s quick. Does that mean he can only always be quick? If he wanted to add an extra bow to his artillery with a speed program in the off-season, I feel this guy could be in the top five in the NRL over 100 metres. But I would have him No.1 over 20 metres.”

He’s kept on doing it all season, with Brisbane halfback Adam Reynolds affording Walsh the little extra space to use his speed by taking the ball deep into the line before finding his fullback, usually on the right side of the field in the attacking half, as shown by a heat map against the Roosters last week.