At some point over the last two and a bit seasons, Penrith became one of the NRL's big clubs — and big clubs are supposed to have stars, especially in the spine but particularly at fullback.
Over the past two decades, fullback has slowly drawn level with halfback as rugby league's glamour position.
Take a look at the last 10 years of premiership sides and you'll see names like Tedesco, Slater, Inglis, Papenhuyzen and Barba — Dally M winners, Clive Churchill Medal claimers, Origin regulars, future Immortals, the whole deal.
You'll also see, right at the end of the line, Penrith's Dylan Edwards.
Last year, there was a bit of talk around that Penrith couldn't win a competition with Edwards at fullback and Stephen Crichton should be switched to the role permanently in the wake of some solid outings when Edwards was injured.
But speculating what the Panthers would look like if they had a James Tedesco or Tom Trbojevic type at fullback misses the point.
Real life is not a fantasy sports team. Too many cooks can spoil the broth and, while Edwards isn't the perfect fullback, he's the perfect fullback for Penrith — and that's more important.
During Penrith's run to the premiership last year, when Edwards battled through a broken foot to be one of their best in the 14-12 win over South Sydney in the decider, the 26-year-old slowly became a common pick for the club's most underrated player.
After a hot start to 2022, Edwards has fast gone from underrated to properly rated.
After five games, only Melbourne's Ryan Papenhuyzen can challenge him as the best fullback so far this season, with Cronulla's Will Kennedy in third place.
He can't pass like Papenhuyzen or Kennedy, and that was marked as his key weakness last year, but Penrith don't have him in there to do a whole lot of passing.
One of the hallmarks of a good side is it lets players stick to their strengths, and Edwards has three of those — his effort, energy and willingness to carry the ball at every opportunity.
With Brian To'o's injury robbing the Panthers of much of the yardage they get from their back three, Edwards has stepped it up and then some to fill the gap.
He's often the first one to get the ball in a set, so he must set a tone for the others. It's been a good tone so far because, in terms of raw metres, nobody in the league can get near Edwards.
He leads all players in runs, with 115, a full 21 ahead of Tedesco in second. Tedesco is also second for run metres with 912, a whopping 322 behind Edwards on 1,234. He's got a big lead in the kick-return-metres department as well, with his 517 well ahead of Alex Johnston in second with 356.
Edwards, low key to a fault off the field, says he's just doing what he's supposed to do.
"I just try and do my job," he says.
"The big boys up front do a great job, so I just go off the back of that and try and keep us in good field position so they don't have to run back too far.
"It's a cliche, but we're trying to get better every day. We always want to improve, as a footy team and individuals, every week and every day."
Penrith's rise to prominence is the result of an iron will that manifests as a relentless physicality, but no players enjoy themselves more than the Panthers when it comes to fighting and winning.
What Cleary and Jarome Luai do — setting up tries and looking good doing it — seems like a very fun time. It's the same for players like Izack Tago and Crichton. Scoring tries, winning big and celebrating with your mates is a good way to spend any Friday or Saturday night.
What Dylan Edwards does is different. It doesn't look fun. It looks draining and painful, and above all it looks hard. Running the ball again and again and again with only the occasional line break is tough. So is supporting up the middle all the time just in case something happens. So is forcing oneself to make a cover tackle in the final minutes of a game that is already won.
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Of course, Luai and Cleary and all the rest do the hard things as well. Otherwise they wouldn't be as good as they are. But nobody exemplifies the unglamorous side of being on a premiership side quite as much as Edwards.
To'o is similarly committed when it comes to tough carries, but he gets the shine of living on the high-octane edge with Luai and Kikau. Even forwards like Isaah Yeo, James Fisher-Harris and Liam Martin, who all play with that same intensity, will get more tangible rewards in the form of representative jerseys.
But with Tedesco, Trbojevic and Latrell Mitchell on the scene, the best Edwards can realistically hope for in that department is a revival of the City-Country clash, where the Bellingen man would no doubt wear the maroon and gold of Country Origin proudly.
But Edwards doesn't need the world because he's got Penrith, where he's become of the black-clad faithfuls' most popular players. You know you're talking to a real Penrith supporter when they chew your ear off about Edwards.
It's the same inside the four walls. Coach Ivan Cleary handed Edwards the captaincy last year when injuries hit. Whenever he's quizzed about his fullback, Cleary always says the same thing.
"Basically his whole career as a junior and coming through the grades, when he's in form he's one of our best three or four players every week," Cleary said after last round's win over Canterbury.
"He does an enormous amount of work for our team. There's plenty of stuff you can see and plenty of stuff you can't see that he does as well.
"We're so happy to have him."
That is almost a word-for-word repeat of Cleary's remarks after the win over South Sydney in the grand final replay the week before. However, he's not just speaking in cliches because it's clearly true. Edwards has quietly — and everything Edwards does seems to happen quietly — become one of the club's longest-serving players.
Only Yeo has been in the NRL for more seasons than Edwards, who came in as part of a rookie class of Panthers back in 2016 that included Cleary, Fisher-Harris and Moses Leota and now looks like the rock on which the golden era has been built.
Edwards does his best to deflect the compliment, but he won't be able to much longer if he keeps up like this.
"It's nice to get that praise but I work hard for the other people around me. I don't want to let anyone down, the same way I know the boys don't want to let me down," Edwards says.
"We have that kind of vibe here. We keep each other accountable."
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