This was a "tweet" from Ryan Hoffman yesterday.

Ryan Hoffman @RyanHoffman12 · Oct 4
I stand by my statement that @seanol13 is the most underrated player in rugby league and is in the top 10 players in the world

Injury permitting

There is no English 13 even close to him. I have no idea what his future plans are but I have no doubt he will be in England's thoughts for as long as he is available.

FWIW he seems to be have been quite well managed this season, I know there have been occasions this season where he has been rested rather than injured. Of course this is all for Wigan's benefit primarily but will do England no harm either.

How time changes everything, I remember the debate when Ian Millward made him captain in 2006 and that may well have been a bit early for him at the time given the circumstances. However when Madge introduced the leadership team I think that was a bit of a turning point for Lockers as he seemed to grow in confidence during that period.

Fully deserved.

Slightly surprised tbh - thought he would have gone for Graham. Maybe because he isn't an 80min player? Not sure what Joel's done to deserve a spot either... Didn't realise Micky Mac and Roby had both ruled themselves out...

Tony Smith and Nathan Brown have both commented in recent post match interviews about how good Lockers is too. Highly rated by players and coaches but very few opposition fans.

SOL went through the usual critique in the eyes of the British rugby league public:

2002/03: emerges in the Wigan team - "this kid could be anything, he is that good, he is the next Andy Farrell, Wigan should stop signing overseas wasters like Julian O'Neill and give this lad a chance"

2005/06: Farrell retires, Wigan struggle without him, SOL form dips: - "next Andy Farrell, my , SOL is the most overrated player in the game"

Now grudgingly he is getting some respect, like Sinfield did over time, because people have realised that although he's not a big ego or personality in the game, he is consistently top class and a player that makes players around him better.

But now comes the next stage, which is annoyingly predictable, the England captain stage. Every time we lose to the Aussies, watch a queue of fans from any club but Wigan saying that he is overrated, not international class, only does it in a Wigan shirt.

That wouldn't surprise me. Very few opposition fans rated Ellery Hanley, Shaun Edwards or Andy Farrell at the time, despite any revisionist stance they may make now,

Spot on about Sean Edwards. He never created anything - All he did was finish others good work etc and so on. Opposition fans absolutely HATED him. Not sure about Ellery though, I got the feeling there was a lot of respect through gritted teeth.

Not sure I agree with that. Any fan of any club who knows anything about the game can see how good he is. For me he is the best player in Super League with Roby not far behind.

Well said, I agree whole heartedly.

Although a saints fan I Know told me on friday night he was nowhere near the same class as Roby.

I disagree with the people on here who say that opposition fans dont rate or appreciate the quality of O'Loughlin.As a Leeds fan myself he is the player from your team i would like to take if we had a free pick and that would have been the case even last year when Sam Tomkins was still here.

He is a real talisman and leader on the field, and Wigan are so much less of a side without him, particularly in the big games.Its a shame he is so prone to injuries but when on the pitch there are few in his position who are better.That is my only reservstion about him being given the captaincy, but if he gets on the field you know what high standard you will be getting.

I agree he's very highly thought of now. That has only been the case for a couple of years though. Up until that point I lost track of the amount of negative posts about his game. He had a weird reputation as some sort of unskilled headhunter.

He was in a similar position to Micky Mac at the moment. Whilst I don't think he's as skilful as Lockers he's far better then he's being given credit for.

Not bad for a man whos knee bent the wrong way all those years ago!