GREG Inglis was still just an emerging talent at the Melbourne Storm when he travelled to Brisbane with the team for a qualifying final against the Broncos in 2005.

Inglis had startled the rugby league world with a number of spectacular performances after breaking into first grade that year but was yet to be granted the megastar status that he now holds. His natural talent was evident, however, and the word "freak" — which has become synonymous with Inglis — had already been used more than once to describe his feats.

On this day, a group of players were milling around during the team's final training session at Suncorp Stadium. Inglis and his teammates had stationed themselves where the halfway line meets the sideline and decided to see who could slot a field goal from that position. The shots of Inglis' teammates drifted well wide or, more often, landed well short, but when it came his turn, Inglis, who was facing the opposite tryline, spun around, took one step and sent the ball arrowing towards the goal — it did not deviate and flew between the uprights. Freak.

It might not be the most spectacular thing the 21-year-old has done on a football field — the list of those have already grown to prodigious length — but it was enough to leave those who witnessed it scratching their heads with wonderment about his natural talent and what he could become. It has always been there and will in all likelihood be on show for Queensland in Wednesday's origin decider against NSW.

Inglis' history is littered with examples of the extraordinary. Maurie Lonergan has been involved in rugby league in the Bowraville and Macksville region of the NSW north coast for more than three decades. He can clearly recall the feats of a young Inglis, particularly one occasion, when the then 15-year-old won a preliminary final for the under-18s with just minutes remaining. Playing the day after competing in a game with his own age group, Inglis made a bust near his own tryline and "beat just about the whole team" to snatch victory. Macksville won the grand final the next week.

"We used to laugh about him sometimes … particularly as a 10 and 11-year-old, he'd beat everyone on the football field," Lonergan said. "He'd see someone coming across and all he'd have to do is run straight and he would score another try but he would go over (towards the oncoming defender) so he could beat that fellow. The odd time he would get caught but most times he didn't."

Lonergan said it was not arrogance that Inglis was displaying — he was among several locals who commented about the grounded upbringing that Inglis was given by his mother Monica and stepfather Wade Blair — but "it was just the way he was — he had a lot of fun beating people." A decade later, not much has changed as Inglis showed with this display of mirth when he spotted good friend Johnathan Thurston attempting to chase him down during the Storm's round-15 clash against North Queensland.

In fact, it is his running style and balance that stands out to many. Among those is Storm strength and conditioning coach Alex Corvo, who said the talk among the club insiders was that he would have been an elite 200 or 400-metre runner if he had chosen that path.

Ritchie Donovan, a well-known professional athlete, sprint coach and spotter of indigenous talent in the Macksville and Bowraville areas, believed that Inglis would have made a great sprinter. But Donovan missed his chance to snare Inglis when former Storm recruitment manager Peter O'Sullivan signed him the day after seeing him play in a local carnival.

"I've always looked at him as a runner because of his long legs and he had very good calves. His physique to me would have made a really great sprinter," he said.

However, perhaps surprisingly, Inglis' speed, strength and power measures do not stand out from his Storm teammates. Cooper Cronk is the quickest over 20 metres, with Billy Slater thereabouts. Corvo said Inglis comes into his own as the distance increases and he outpaces them over the length of a field. However, his strength and power levels are only average, despite the strength he shows with his famous right-hand fend.

To Corvo, Inglis' brilliance comes from his instincts and onfield awareness — as shown by the Mark Gasnier try he set up during the Centenary Test against New Zealand this year when he leapt over the dead-ball line and threw the ball back over his head to his Australian colleague. It was on show again during the second State of Origin clash earlier this month when he fended off Blues winger Steve Turner and then hurdled him on the way to setting up Darius Boyd.

"Everyone talked about his fend on Steve Turner (during Origin II) but even more remarkable than that was the fact that he actually hurdled Steve a split second after he fended him off. Your normal player would have just tripped over, but he had the instinctive ability to hurdle him and continue running without losing any speed," Corvo said.

So where does that instinct come from — was Inglis born with it or was it taught? O'Sullivan has no doubt. "(Skills) are honed certainly, but that innate sense, that skill, that touch, that feel … if it could be taught then (the average player) would be as good as anybody else (and) that's bullshit."

However, Warren Young, an associate professor in human movement at the University of Ballarat, said "the whole idea of giftedness is really a controversial thing".

"I don't know if you're born with skill. There's a lot of evidence that the most skillful players have got there because they've actually spent the hours practising, even if its unstructured practise like playing when they were a kid," he said. "The whole thing about indigenous players that comes up because everyone says they're gifted and they move well and everything but that's the way they've played as kids, so it's really hard to separate the genetic from the upbringing."

Damian Farrow, an expert in skills acquisition who has worked with the AIS and AFL clubs, agreed that natural ability came from more than just genes.

"They're obviously born with something that might be a little bit more than the average person but having said that I still think the majority of it is established through training, not through genetics," Farrow said. "The better players invent little challenges for themselves that make their skills that much better than the average player … who just do what's prescribed, rather than thinking a little bit outside the circle and challenging their skill set a little bit more."

Greg Iredale, the sports co-ordinator at the primary school that Inglis attended, Macksville Public School, said Inglis was a natural at every sport. His under-nine's long jump record still stands and his high-jump mark was only broken two years ago. He also made the regional swimming finals without any training — having learned how to swim in the local river.

One area that Inglis has been criticised for is his tendency to cruise through a game. O'Sullivan went as far as saying Inglis could be lazy, compared to teammates like Israel Folau. "He might only pull out five games a year for you but when he does they're five doozies, whereas Israel will pull out five rippers and 20 very, very, good ones. Greg will sort of pull it out when he has to," O'Sullivan said.

Others such as Donovan, who has spent decades involved with the Macksville and Bowraville clubs, said that was just Inglis' way. "I remember in the under 18s I'd come to the dressing shed and Greg would be so casual he'd be lounging around on the lounge. He wasn't really motivated by all that much. I knew he had a lot of talent and I was pleased he did go on … there's a lot of aboriginal kids who don't take that step and it's to his credit and his parents that he stuck to it."

But is he the most talented footballer of any code in the land? He is often compared to Hawthorn's Lance Franklin, who shares a freakishly similar physique — Franklin is 196cm and 101 kilograms, Inglis 195cm and 101kg.

"If you were a rugby league coach or an AFL coach you wouldn't mind having both in your team because they could both probably play either sport," Corvo said. "There's a lot of similarities even in their stature and they physical prowess. It's probably the fact that they are playing the sports they are has been dependent on where they were born."

Corvo said he was not convinced that Inglis could be classified as even having the most natural ability in the club — rating Slater and Folau with him — let alone the NRL, with the likes of Sonny Bill Williams, Benji Marshall, Gasnier and Thurston among the ranks.

But he had no doubt who was most likely to do the extraordinary.

"If it was freakish, it would be Greg," he said.