Only four Dally M winners make my team of the year LOOKING at the Dally M winners, I've got to say from the footy I've seen over most of the season I came up with a fairly different list. Granted, I haven't seen every game this year, so maybe my opinion is not based on a comprehensive list of all the facts and figures. But I've picked a team of 17 I feel has been the best. I realise the Dally M chose only nine players, however, I've named a full starting 13 and interchange players. I agree on only four of the Dally M positional winners. To show no bias, I left my Melbourne players out of consideration. I will say though that Cooper Cronk was a very deserved winner of the overall Dally M Medal as player of the year. I've seen first-hand how hard he works, how seriously he takes every game and his role in this team and club. My team is: Greg Inglis (fullback, Souths); Jorge Taufua (left wing, Manly); Joey Leilua (left centre, Newcastle); Jamie Lyon (right centre, Manly); David Nofoaluma (right winger, Wests Tigers); Johnathan Thurston (five-eighth, North Queensland); Daly Cherry-Evans (halfback, Manly); Jared Waerea-Hargreaves (prop, Roosters); Issac Luke (hooker, Souths); Andrew Fifita (prop, Cronulla); Sam Burgess (second row, Souths); Sonny Bill Williams (second row, Roosters); Anthony Watmough (lock, Manly). Interchange: Josh Reynolds (Canterbury), Justin Horo (Manly), Nate Myles (Gold Coast), Jeremy Smith (Newcastle). On the right wing, Nofoaluma is just ahead of David Simmons (Penrith), who I thought had a marvellous year. But in my list I left out some big names - guys such as Paul Gallen and Glenn Stewart. This list was not about the best players in the competition, but who I thought had the best form in that particular position this year. Looking ahead to tomorrow night's grand final, the two clubs involved have taken two distinct and different paths to build a premiership-winning squad. Manly has about 12 players who were around the club for the 2007 and 2008 grand finals they played in. That's a long time to keep that kind of number together. They were either players who came up through Manly's juniors or they were bought at a young age and placed into the system before they played first grade. So one thing you've got to hand to Manly, they've done a great job to keep those guys together considering the high quality of those players and constrictions of the salary cap. The recruitment team at the Sea Eagles needs to take a bow. And they've included Tom Symonds (ex-Roosters), Brenton Lawrence (ex-Gold Coast), Justin Horo (ex-Parramatta) and Richie Fa'aoso (ex-Melbourne) and any one of those you could nominate as "the buy of the year." They weren't the biggest names at their previous clubs but they are mature, regular first-graders. In comparison, there's not that kind of number at the Roosters. There are seven survivors from the 2010 grand final but it seems to me the Roosters have bought mainly established players such as James Maloney (ex-Warriors), Daniel Mortimer (ex-Eels), Luke O'Donnell (ex-Cowboys), Waerea-Hargreaves (ex-Manly), Michael Jennings (ex-Penrith) and SBW. They landed two superstars in Jennings and SBW quite late in the pre-season, almost unexpectedly. They've been a huge bonus for the Roosters. So that's a different mentality, that runs in tandem with buying some good young players such as Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Daniel Tupou, Boyd Cordner and Aidan Guerra. Their recruitment boss Peter O'Sullivan does a good job. I know him well as he worked at the Storm previously. It just goes to show that with the two best sides of the year, there's no right or wrong way to shape your squad. I won't be trying to tip the winner. Both teams deserve to be there, so may the best team on the day take home the spoils.