The NRL should go "back to the future" and make rugby league icon Allan Langer the next Immortal, Brisbane coach Kevin Walters insists.
A new Immortal, the 14th, will be inducted at a Hall of Fame dinner next month and Langer will be one of the candidates along with legends of the game such as Ron Coote, Darren Lockyer, Billy Slater, Johnathan Thurston and Cameron Smith.
Langer won four man of the match awards for Queensland in 34 Origin games spanning 15 years and had and a decorated 25-game Test career.
Throw in his 258-game club career and four premierships as captain with the Broncos, including a Clive Churchill medal in 1992, and it is a remarkable record for a footballer who stood at just 165cm.
"It is pretty clear in my head that Allan Langer is very much underrated as far as elite players go and Immortal players," Walters said.
"There is nothing he didn't do on the field for the Broncos, whether it was captaining the club to four premierships or captaining Queensland to series wins or for Australia.
"Locky would be another one but I have got Alf in front of Locky at this stage. I am not saying Locky can't be an Immortal in the future but right now Alfie is the one.
"They have got a statue of him (at Suncorp Stadium). All they have got to do now is make him Immortal. Cameron, JT and Billy have only just recently retired. We've got to go back to the future."
Walters played alongside Langer at the Broncos and for Queensland and Australia with him.
"He was known as 'the money man'. That was a thing amongst all the players at the Broncos through that era," Walters said.
"A lot of us would go to the bank and put our card in and there was no money coming out. He always had something, particularly late in games. When he went to the machine there was always something coming out.
"Two things (stand out). His unpredictability on the field. Sometimes Alfie didn't know what Alfie was doing but it just seemed to work.
"And just the size of him. I think he was 67 kilograms in his first State of Origin game and most of that was all ticker. For the size of him I think he achieved enormous things, and there was his mental strength and his capacity to want to win.
"Alfie brings people together and he brings the game together.
"If you ask a lot of people their thoughts, the fans, I am sure Alfie would be right up there."
In 2018 Wayne Bennett said Langer deserved Immortal status.
"I believe he is the best Bronco and the most influential player in my time here," Bennett insisted.
""He was a star for a decade. In my opinion, he was the best player in the game for a decade. "Joey (Andrew Johns) was a wonderful player. It was just that Alf got lost in it all ... but if he'd been down in NSW, Alf would have been Immortalised, there is no doubt about that."
