Centre? Five-eighth? Back row? Where is Jack Wighton’s best fit at South Sydney?

When news broke in April 2023 that Canberra Raider’s star man, Jack Wighton, had signed with the South Sydney Rabbitohs on a four-year deal from 2024, it sent shockwaves around the rugby league world. How could one of the NRL’s most talented littered outfits sign one of its brightest stars?

As his debut in the red and green approaches, there can be no doubt about the competitive edge Wighton’s arrival gives Souths. But, it poses the question, amidst a sky full of stars where is his best position at the Rabbitohs?

Positionally, few NRL players can rival Jack Wighton’s immense. According to rugby league encyclopedia, Rugby League Project, the Orange-born star has played in every backline position throughout his 12-year NRL career.

Across 242 games prior to the beginning of the 2024 season, Wighton has featured 86 times at fullback, 14 times on the wing, 23 times at centre, once at halfback, and 118 times at five-eighth. If we include representative football where Wighton’s featured from the bench seven times, including in 30 per cent of his State of Origin appearances, then the new Souths recruit has featured in six positions across his career.

Versatility is paramount to any champion team, particularly across the back line; think Greg Inglis in the early Storm Premierships and Stephen Crichton throughout Penrith’s dynasty. And whilst being able to seamlessly shift positions can be a hindrance to player progression, it has made Wighton the magnificent player he current is.

But where exactly does the Rabbitohs newest recruit fit into their side? How do Jason Demetriou and his coaching staff fit Wighton into an already stacked side? Is it even possible?

Where should Jack Wighton play for Souths?

Let’s start with the obvious, he will not line up at fullback or five-eighth for South Sydney, despite 84% of his first-grade matches occurring in either position.

Outside of Cameron Murray, South Sydney’s two best players, Latrell Mitchell and Cody Walker, exceptionally occupy those roles. In fact, both are so good that our writers ranked them in the top 30 NRL players heading into 2024.

However, considering the ill-tempered Mitchell’s fragile body and proclivity for accruing sometimes lengthy suspensions, it would come as no surprise to see Wighton roaming around the back for South Sydney at some stage in 2024, if not consistently.

Five-eighth, the position Wighton made his own in the national capital, where he won a Dally M and Clive Churchill medal (in a losing Grand Final side back in 2019), is another role he’s unlikely to find himself filling for Souths unless injury or suspension intervenes.

Ahead of him in the pecking order is Cody Walker, South Sydney’s brilliant, instinctual five-eighth with hands softer than clouds and an uncanny knack for threading the football through gaps it shouldn’t be able to squeeze.

For years, Walker’s been the orchestrator of everything good about South’s blistering left edge, with his combination with winger Alex Johnston in particular bordering on telepathic.

According to Fox Lab statistics, amongst five-eighths in the 2023 NRL season, Walker finished with the second most tries (nine), and most try assists (24), while only Reece Walsh and Nicho Hynes contributed to more line breaks across the whole competition.

All this was during a widely regarded down year for Walker who at times looked to be slowing down, like the shine he operated with for so long was beginning to fade. At 34, Walker’s time in the NRL is drawing to a close, that’s undoubted, and Wighton’s arrival appears to be a long-term succession plan for when Walker’s current deal expires in 2025.

In the short term however, Wighton’s future lies outside of the halves, despite certain factions of the rugby league world calling for a Wighton-Walker halves partnership that would be equal parts exciting and directionless.

Only 2020’s Melbourne Storm have won a Premiership without a controlling halfback, and that was because they had a certain Cameron Smith running the show. A South’s spine of Damien Cook, Walker, Wighton, and Mitchell has devastating potential, but doubts over their ability to control games in the way spines with traditional halves do would limit their ceiling.

Where does this leave Jack Wighton?

Well, the consensus is that Wighton will seamlessly slot into left centre at South Sydney, a position that, ignoring two appearances at the end of 2023, he’s not consistently featured in at club level in a decade.

Internationally, however, Wighton is purely used as a centre, winning 2022’s Rugby League World Cup as a powerful and dynamic left centre. He’s regarded as one of representative football’s most destructive outside backs, with former New South Wales Origin coach Brad Fittler often calling upon him in that role whenever necessary.

All roads point towards Wighton’s inclusion at left centre. And when you sit and think about it, it is a frightening proposition. Can you imagine Walker, Wighton, and Mitchell charging at defences with Johnston hugging the paint in anticipation of an almost guaranteed try?

It’s a bamboozling nightmare for even the most astute defensive units. Who do you focus on more? Walker and his deceptive hands, Wighton’s potential rib-shattering running, or Latrell Mitchell, who combines both?

Defensively Wighton’s game is far from perfect; he was among the top 50 in the NRL for missed tackles in 2023, but the defensive adjustment from five-eighth to centre is far from drastic, with centres defending one position wider than their halves counterparts.

At 96 kilos and 190 centimetres tall, he’s physically capable of matching it with the NRL’s most destructive right centres, like Kotoni Staggs and Jesse Ramien, limiting their scoreboard impact.

Losing out in all of this is Isaiah Tass, the Rabbitohs’ current left centre who’s become renowned as a serviceable, reliable outside back who, while lacking in thrust and power, is one of the finest edge defenders in the NRL.

Defending outside of Walker, who missed 3.6 tacklers per game in 2023, is no easy feat for any player, but Tass did so admirably, with minimal fuss, and rarely looked a liability.

One must wonder then: is there a world in which Tass and Wighton play together?

2023 Best Moments: This try-saver from Jack Wighton 🙌#WeAreRaiders pic.twitter.com/B43Q0nHraq

— Canberra Raiders (@RaidersCanberra) October 8, 2023

Looking back might provide Jason Demetriou with answers to this conundrum, particularly on the 2014 Premiership side that ended South Sydney’s 43-year title drought and John Sutton’s role in that side.

Early in his career, Sutton was a brilliant five-eighth, but as his career progressed, the former Souths captain found himself in the back row. In this role he was the perfect marriage of finesse and physicality, the ball-playing connective tissue which allowed his edge to flourish on both sides of the ball.

In Jack Wighton, South’s have as close to a John Sutton regen as they ever will get. Sutton wasn’t a renowned line-running second rower, like your Briton Nikoras of the world, but Rabbitohs fans will remember his silky hands linking the middle to the edge during attacking phases.

It’s a role Wighton can fill, without a doubt.

Defensively, as we mentioned, Wighton might not be the most reliable back-rower, particularly alongside Walker whose propensity to slip from tackles is widely known and targeted, but as we’ve mentioned, he has all the physical attributes necessary to match it with the wide running forwards.

Shifting Wighton to back row not only allows Demetriou to squeeze Tass into the side, adding an extra layer of edge defensive fortification, adds back row X-factor that Jacob Host lacks, and can also benefit the thrust South’s middle forwards generate by freeing Jai Arrow to play more minutes in the middle, either starting or off the bench, and allow Cameron Murray to reduce his minutes but maximise his effort.

Roll on footy season. 🏉🐇❤️💚 pic.twitter.com/YfpPYrtjRy

— South Sydney Rabbitohs 🐰 (@SSFCRABBITOHS) December 17, 2023

While the strategy mightn’t be the most conventional approach, shifting a Dally M winning five-eighth into an edge forward position he’s never played, there’s no reason the gamble cannot pay off, especially considering the roaming middle forward role Jack Wighton’s excelled at in the Origin arena.

In the end, such is Wighton’s talent that wherever South’s choose to play him in the 2024 NRL season will ultimately prove to be the correct one. Jason Demetriou has hit the jackpot, able to call upon one of rugby league’s finest players of the last five years who’s able to plug many positional holes, put out many fires, and elevate Souths to true Premiership contenders.