Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 8:56 am  

Past or present, any team.

Jonathan Davies, I was a young lad when I saw JD in the p&b, he was the player I wanted to be, I was a quick winger myself not a full back, I was 100m runner in the athletics team and I always imagined myself stepping players and flying past them.

Why does he ruin my memories with his drone?

Re: Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:11 am  

He is still a Wire deep down.
I picked him up along with Clarke Balding one time.
I asked Jiffy the question are you a Wire? Clare chirped up, "You bet he is, the trouble we have trying to get him to calm himself and remain neutral. We have to remind him every time we're doing a Warrington game!"
I always think of that when he commentates on our games, droning or not Yed.
In 2009 it almost killed him trying to restrict his emotions and Dave Woods touched upon it too. Jiffy couldn't hide a Cheshire cat grin in post match chat after the game.
He is a full blown Wire.

Re: Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 10:25 am  

I'd like to talk about Mark Roberts, but

he's got an injunction on me mentioning him, and Mrs Goldblatt gets very jealous. DAMN.

Instead, I'll do one on Gareth Hock.

HE'S A WHOPPER. END OF.

Re: Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:53 pm  

I'd like some people's views on Andy Gregory.

Re: Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 3:56 pm  

CommanderShepard wrote:

I'd like some people's views on Andy Gregory.

Fine player, whoever he played for.

You'd find some strange spellings though, to bypass the swear filter

Re: Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 4:14 pm  

CommanderShepard wrote:

I'd like some people's views on Andy Gregory.

We already had a lengthy topic about him a few months back. I don't think anymore could be added to what was said. I don't know how to filter, sorry.

Re: Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 6:05 pm  

Neil Turley. Lower division points machine.

Wigan Academy fullback, unlikely to get a game because of Radlinski. Joined Leigh when he was about 20 and scored 55 tries in his debut season, world record for a fullback. He also got called up for that Lancashire v Yorkshire Origin game and scored a try in it.

That year there was a lot of hype about Turley and he was linked with a few SL clubs. He was fast and a great runner from fullback and he was also a good goalkicker, although he was unproven at SL level, you had to say he would be worth looking at.

Early the next season we were in relegation trouble, Steve Anderson moved upstairs and the board (ie probably Simon Moran) announced that new head coach David Plange would have some money to spend. Plange said he hoped to secure a 'major signing'. Turley was the target, but he ended up turning us down.

The story I heard about this was that Warrington had concluded the deal, and then Turley came back and asked for more money, and this pattern repeated itself a couple of times till we called the deal off. Possibly Turley didn't really want to join us, as we were a struggling club and he was just testing the water hoping other SL clubs came in for him.

However that could have been Turley's big chance for Super League, the other clubs didn't come in. Leigh had to contend with first Huddersfield and then Salford dropping down and being full-time, and although Turley continued to amass points at a prolific rate, he never got the call from an SL team. Eventually a few years later, Leigh got promoted and he played in SL, but he played in a weak Leigh team that was never really a contender. Also Turley by then was struggling with injuries which ultimately ended his career when he was only 26.

Did he make a bad decision when he was in talks with us? Could he have made it in SL? I remember the word at the time on why other clubs didn't go in for him was that at Wigan he'd been thought of as a talent but that was too brittle and potentially injury prone, which ended up being right. But he certainly had some ability and in a brief career albeit at the lower levels largely you have to say he achieved a lot and will be regarded as a legend in Leigh.

The postscript for us was that when the Turley deal didn't happen, we turned to another target for our 'big signing'. Wakefield centre Ben Westwood. A few eyebrows were raised at the time when we paid a biggish fee for him, people said we'd signed the wrong one and should have looked at their other young centre Gareth Ellis. Westwood looked a bit slow for a centre and Plange's quote to the media that we had signed the "next Keith Senior" looked unlikely over the next two and a half years where he was used as a centre or winger.

Then Cullen used him as a fill in in the pack and he never looked back. How history could have been different, if we had signed Neil Turley instead of Ben Westwood.

Re: Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 6:09 pm  

Crikey Lefty what did you do to get that.
I would say that I remember Mark being a terrific 2nd rower with good pace playing in a good side. Left the area for a spell and never really saw much of him on my return.

After Les Boyd, two of my favorites were Des Drummond and John Woods, shame we didn't get them earlier in their careers although both provided fantastic moments.

Re: Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 6:33 pm  

Chris Rudd. Not my favourite ever Wires player, not the best or well known, but a good example of a fine player born a few years too early, and who missed out on the SL and full-time gravy train.

Chris signed for us from Kells and was immediately burdened with the tag "the new John Woods". Tagging anyone "the new ..." is lazy and unfair, but comparing anyone to John Woods is a RL career millstone.

Nonetheless, Chris developed into a very elegant, tall, pacy, classic centre with a good pair of hands. I recall one home game at Wilderspool V Halifax whden Chris & Greg Mackey comined to totally dismantle 'Fax, with Ruddy getting on the end of a variety of kicks and ripping through the defence like a forest fire.

Chris had a good but demanding job with BNFL and this, perhaps, is one reason why he never achieved his potential. However, he is one player in particular from that era I would have dearly loved to see under full-time tutorage and training. He had an array of skills that puts most modern centres to shame and remains an untapped seam of quality from our recent past.

Re: Talk about a Player, any Player. : Sun Sep 07, 2014 7:02 pm  

Neil Turley played for Leigh Rangers as an amateur, I played in the same age group, he was a gangly lad with a running style similar to carlton palmer. Before kicking tees were the rage he used to kick off a massive amount of sand. The rugby lads used to joke about it being the second biggest peak behind Rivington in our service area.