Official Rankings of the Best NRL Tattoos

The start of the NRL season is rapidly approaching.

Players are training the house down with alarming frequency. The poor house is barely repaired before some other player has trained it right back down to its foundations. It's the same every pre-season.

Also the same every pre-season are the tattoos. Because they're done with permanent ink inserted just beneath the skin. Therefore they can't change.

Here are the OFFICIAL RANKINGS OF THE BEST NRL TATTOOS~!

There are 16. It was going to be one for each club, but some clubs have more tattoos than others, so it's now 16 for no reason.

(All images courtesy of NRL Facebook page)

15 & 16. PARRAMATTA

I disqualified a few home tattoos on the NRL Facebook page from this list on the grounds that they were too sad and unsafe to be funny.

My qualifying bar is professional tattoos only. Of which the two worst belong to Parra supporters, for some reason.

This first one features a Paramatta [sic] Eel that has eaten all the pies:

And then this one that is so bad someone appears to have stabbed its owner for showing it to them:

14. NATHAN HINDMARSH

...is constipated?

It's also a little scary that this guys entire body is an ode to footy.

So yeah, I'm saying the three worst tattoos belong to Parra supporters. With this Hindmarsh one, it also demonstrates the risk in getting a tattoo of an actual person. It requires a highly skilled artist...

13. ...YEAH, NOT THIS ARTIST

Can you work out who this is?

Here's a hint...

12. TITANS
This is probably the only Gold Coast Titans tattoo in existence, and it's kinda fitting how shit it is:

10 & 11. QUEENSLANDER!

Literally nobody from New South Wales really cares about being from New South Wales outside of three footy games.

People from Queensland get it tattooed down a limb.

And this is why one state has won eight State of Origin series in a row and the other has not.

9. SPEAKING OF ICONIC QUEENSLAND MOMENTS...

More Queenslander than the tattoos
 actually saying Queenslander.

8. WHEN YOU CAN'T BE ARSED PUTTING ON SOCKS

Kinda shocked there weren't more
 Souffs tats to choose from.

7. WEST TIGERS

Fake news.

5 & 6. ACTUAL PREMIERSHIPS

Not sure which of these I like better....

I can definitely see the artistic merit of commemorating Steve "Beaver" Menzies leading Manly to a 40-0 drubbing of the Storm in 2008 Grand Final with a literal beaver in Sea Eagles gear.

However, the simplicity of Jamie Soward's headgear to depict the St. George-ILLAWARRA 2010 victory is very clever.

I think while the Beaver symbolism is more obvious, it would also lead to more awkward conversations and potential ridicule than the headgear one. So I'm awarding the win to the Dragons here. Sadly I don't think they'll get many more wins  in 2020.

4. TOGETHER AT LAST!

Name a more iconic duo than footy and The Simpsons...

3. WARRIORS

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of Warriors tattoos out there. This is easily the best one:

Siri, show me optimism.

2. MITCHELL PEARCE

If you can't read it,
the tattoo says: Mitchell Pearce

Hopefully this guy lost a bet. It's hilarious but I still feel it's missing something to put it over the top. Maybe a quote from Robert Mugabe. Or perhaps an impressive yet forgotten statistical achievement...

1. THE PERFECT FOOTY TATTOO

Nothing more to be said.