Others are what you might term ‘‘sneaky great’’ - by the time you realise they have earned a place in the Pantheon, their time at the club is over.
Rangy lock Simon Maling is perhaps the poster boy for that group.
The man known as ‘‘Donk’’ was consistently excellent in his eight seasons with the Highlanders but, possibly because he did not play as many tests for the All Blacks as some others, he did not always get the plaudits he deserved.
He was certainly appreciated by those who watched the Highlanders closely during a generally outstanding era.
Maling was a lineout king, a smart and agile operator who always provided a consistent flow of ball.
He was not the biggest forward on the field - he was far from small, to be clear - but he played with real presence and threw himself around the place.
After backing up the yeoman pairing of Brendon Timmins and John Blaikie, Maling became the main man in the Highlanders second row, and was an ever-present, usually beside Filipo Levi, in the last three or four years of his time in Dunedin.
Maling was a smart cookie, a Christ’s College product and University of Otago graduate, and a humble man who never saw himself as a star.
“It’s just hard work and luck. For the breaks to come, you must be in the right place at the right time.’’
He played 11 tests, seven of them coming in the 2002 season.
When his time with the Highlanders was up, Maling played in Japan and had plenty of success with the Suntory Sungoliath team before ending his rugby career with a brief stint in Wales.
He might have been a city boy but he ended up a man of the land, farming Lindis Peaks Station with wife Lucy and their children.
