The era of the ball player was when the 5 yard rule was in place , the introduction of the 10m distance has placed the emphasis on power and strength.

Teams needed decent ball players to unlock the defences.

Just about every team had one and they did not need to do a lot of running about , they wouldn't be 'carried' in the modern game. Although TBF some were really good tacklers - Charlie Birdseed springs to mind for your lot.
Signed from somewhere like Rochdale for a few thousand quid at the back end of his career , could tackle , pass , scored a few tries and even knocked over a couple of goals.

I agree with most of whats been said and I liked old Charlie,but at play the ball nowadays compred with 5yard rule you still have 2 players in front and how often do you here get em on side for the rest who encroach.
As for been fitter yes I will agree but they still dont know what to do when trying to cross the line from short play the ball the old clever ball players did.

Todays game is much faster, fitter and so on, the real ballplayers have no place in todays game i am afraid as all players would be expected to have a decent bag of tricks with ball in hand where as many back then were just trundlers

Bollox, they were a product of the game at the time. Great players from any era would be great players now if they had all the advantages modern players do

The modern players should have a bag of so called tricks but you dont see many nowadays at the KC thats maybe why we are not challenging for anything.