FOR the first time in the Super League era, a Warrington Wolves player could be named the Steve Prescott MBE Man of Steel next week.

It has been confirmed this afternoon that, following a stellar 2024 campaign, full-back Matt Dufty is on the three-man shortlist for the competition’s top individual honour.

The Australian has strong competition from the two players who formed the half-back pairing in this year’s Super League Dream Team – Hull KR’s Mikey Lewis and Marc Sneyd of Salford Red Devils – who join him on the shortlist.

He becomes the second Warrington player to be named in contention for an individual honour this week after second rower Matty Nicholson was short-listed for Super League’s Young Player of the Year award alongside Wigan Warriors forward Junior Nsemba and St Helens prop George Delaney.

The winners of both awards plus the Super League Coach of the Year prize, for which Wire’s Sam Burgess was controversially left off the four-man shortlist, will be revealed at the Rugby League Awards in Leeds on Tuesday, October 8.

Lewis is considered the Man of Steel favourite but should Dufty win, he would become just the third Warrington player to win the prize after Ken Kelly (1981) and Jonathan Davies (1994).

Until Round 15 of the season, the winners of Man of Steel points were released on a weekly basis and at that point, Dufty and Sneyd were joint-top of the leaderboard on 18 points, with Lewis four points further back.

Dufty, who himself was named in the Dream Team alongside his fellow contenders, was directly involved in more tries (36 – 17 tries and 19 assists) than any other full-back and in terms of the competition as a whole, only Lewis (43 – 19 tries, 24 assists) recorded more try involvements.

He did, however, finish far clear of any other player in terms of metres made – his total of 4,234m in the regular season was almost 500 clear of his nearest rival, and he averaged just over 192m per game.