The Dally M medal, like so many things associated with the National Rugby League, is much maligned.

There’s the voting system and the fact it’s associated with a newspaper group, and – a few years ago now – a string of ineloquent acceptance speeches.

As a bigtime pro sports league, the NRL is open to scrutiny, criticism and ridicule. It pays players some $112 million, collects $1.025 billion in TV rights and dominates back pages and TV ratings on the eastern seaboard for the winter months. Its CEO is a former merchant banker.

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Boil the kettle, it’s English import James Graham. Photo: Getty

But as South Sydney prepares for what many seem to think of as an assured first premiership in 43 years, perhaps we should separate the media-facing artifice of rugby league from what it really is.

There was evidence everywhere at Star City casino on Monday night that rugby league is still just a group of people – people who do good things, people who stuff up, people who are doing their best.

The triggers, for me, were subtle. Johnathan Thurston talking about having to get home because his daughter is too young to have respect for hangovers. Chatting to Mike Eden, who I watched accept the 1983 Rothmans Medal in a lairy blue suit. Spending time with coaches and CEOs and referees.

South Sydney got chucked out of the premiership because of a small group of people – and they got back in because of a much, much larger group of people

The Souths players aren’t bulked up automatons with battery packs under their jerseys.

The Burgess boys were raised by their mother and moved to the other side of the world to make a mark on it.

Alex Johnston once played his team-mate, Greg Inglis, in a television commercial. Centre Dylan Walker is excited for fellow squad member, Aaron Gray, who he has known since they were 14 – even though Gray’s not playing this weekend.

The same goes for the Dogs – Tim Lafai recently found out he and his partner were having a child after being told they couldn’t. Winger Corey Thompson would have been happy to play football for fun until he got a call from the Dogs midway through last year, even though it cost him a grand final appearance with Brisbane Easts two years running.

Without thinking, we use phrases like “English import” – and make James Graham sound like a box of teabags or a block of chocolate.

“It doesn’t really matter where I’m from,” says Graham, who will soon captain his club and country.

Another ‘English import’: Sam Burgess. Photo: Getty

“I don’t look at it as, like, I’m an Englishman over here. I’m a rugby league player. There’re players in our team and in this competition from all walks of life. There’re players who grew up in Tonga, in New Zealand, in Queensland, NSW, in the country, in the city…

“It’s just geographically I’m from a different part than most and people seem to want to talk about that, really…”

If traditional media tends to dehumanise people – reduce them to a collection of clichés – then social media does it on a much deeper level. You not only form opinions of people you’ve never met but you tell them what that opinion is, whether they want to hear it or not.

Rugby league started because footballers didn’t want to starve when they were off work injured. One hundred and 19 years later, fans queued up for grand final t-shirts around the same corner in Redfern where the rabbit-carcass sellers who gave the club its nickname use to stand.

You can use the expression “from humble beginnings” – but Souths, and rugby league, remain humble.

I’ve been guilty this year of finding negatives in rugby league’s DNA. But this week, and this Sunday, are all about the resilience, inclusiveness and strength at the game’s core.