On Sunday night, North Queensland clinched their maiden NRL premiership in a dramatic decider many are labeling the greatest of all time.

The same tag is being applied to the Cowboys halfback.

Is it justified? Probably.

Even in the esteemed company of his Maroons mates Smith, Inglis and Slater, there’s no question Thurston is the finest player of his generation, a playmaker of rare skill, vision and tenacity.

At the very least, his impressive list of achievements deserve mentioning in the same breath as those of the game’s Immortals: two NRL titles, world cup wins, a pivotal role in a State of Origin dynasty and more Dally Ms than Chris Sandow’s career tackle count.

With that kind of pedigree, Thurston didn’t need a Clive Churchill Medal to take his place next to Lewis and Langlands.

Based solely on his performance at ANZ Stadium, he didn’t deserve one.

The Australian selectors, who choose the prestigious medal winner, must have been busy queuing for what I presume was many, many mid-strengths when Thurston kicked the ball dead, miscued attempted bombs, twice got caught on the fourth tackle, knocked on to concede a try and (narrowly) missed a (very, very difficult) conversion to win the game after the full-time siren.

No disrespect to the champion - his calm in kicking the match-winning field goal is obviously a better gauge of his talents than the above catalogue of mistakes - but he wasn’t among the five best players on the night.

Anthony Milford was a standout and had his side held out for another five seconds he would have required a gracious acceptance speech. He should have anyway: Daly Cherry-Evans won the award in a well beaten Manly side in 2013, so the Broncos five-eighth can consider himself very hard done by.

Jason Taumalolo, Jake Granville and Corey Parker each exerted far more influence than Thurston, but the closest they came to the coveted medal was when hugging their fellow Queenslander.

Rewarding Thurston was a safe but short-sighted decision, one which follows a worrying trend of selecting the coveted award's winner based on a populist’s criteria of fairy tales over fact.

George Burgess trumped brother Sam last October but lacked the John Sattler-esque facial fracture to prove it, while Sonny Bill Williams’s power and class somehow fell short of besting Cherry-Evans’ all-round likability in 2013.

Those decisions, when added to Sunday’s, mean the time-honoured award is now verging on farcical, simultaneously denying the deserving winner their rightful moment in the sun and devaluing the prize for future recipients.