Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 10:20 am  

How about Ian Sibbit? Good player for us but I was surprised when Melbourne signed him. Don't really recall how he went in the NRL but he didn't seem quite the same player when he came back.

Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 10:30 am  

Sibbitt was rubbish and maintained that level at a baffled Melbourne and thereafter.

Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 11:01 am  

There is only one player we've released in the last 15 years that I've gone "Damn I think that's a mistake" and that was out of our hands.

That player is Peter Hiku.

Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 11:03 am  

The Speculator wrote:

How about Ian Sibbit? Good player for us but I was surprised when Melbourne signed him. Don't really recall how he went in the NRL but he didn't seem quite the same player when he came back.

That was one of the most surreal episodes in my rugby league lifetime. I don't know what Sibbit's agent was getting paid but he was certainly earning it. I wonder how many times Sibbitt hung up the phone and checked it wasn't April 1st before he started dancing round the garden.

Little known fact - Melbourne's then head of recruitment was sacked the following year when he thought he'd signed young protege Ieystn Harris and some fella called Keith turned up in Australia with a green duck in a nappy.

Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 12:44 pm  

Wirefan wrote:

There is only one player we've released in the last 15 years that I've gone "Damn I think that's a mistake" and that was out of our hands.

That player is Peter Hiku.

Was he related to Peta Hiku (who scored 10 tries in 11 games for us in 2017) ?

Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 12:45 pm  

Andy Gregory was the "missing piece" in Wigan's jigsaw. Had he stayed with us, WE may have been a dominant force. The pack was better than Wigan's , and we'd already added Joe Ropati to our ranks, and we had been turning them over at the time. Our loss was a massive gain for them

His replacement, the superb Keith Holden, only lasted a year, until he stepped onto a Swinton landmine

Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 1:26 pm  

lefty goldblatt wrote:

Andy Gregory was the "missing piece" in Wigan's jigsaw. Had he stayed with us, WE may have been a dominant force. The pack was better than Wigan's , and we'd already added Joe Ropati to our ranks, and we had been turning them over at the time. Our loss was a massive gain for them

His replacement, the superb Keith Holden, only lasted a year, until he stepped onto a Swinton landmine

This was a few years before my time, but as I understood it he wanted to leave Widnes and join Wigan but Widnes would not sell him directly to Wigan.

Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 2:22 pm  

Interesting someone raised Billy McGinty. I don’t think he played any better for them than us but he did benefit from the “Wigan profile” at that time if you wanted to be noticed for international duty it certainly helped if you played for them.
The pineapple king!

Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 2:51 pm  

Looking back, we used to supply Wigan with quite a few quality players back in the 80's - Brian Case, Neil Courtney and Ian Potter were all very good forwards, who had great careers with both us and them. Also, Phil Ford was another top player who we sold to them, though I don't think he hung around at Wigan too long (wasn't he part of the Hanley transfer from Bradford to Wigan?).

The McGinty deal was an odd one, as he was always in Mike Gregory's shadow here at Wire and only when Mike began to have injury issues, did McGinty get a real go in our side.

Another odd one was when they took Martin Crompton off us - decent enough lad, but nowhere near the quality that Wigan had in their side back then.

Re: Players who have played better since leaving Wire : Sun May 09, 2021 3:27 pm  

Dita's Slot Meter wrote:

Another odd one was when they took Martin Crompton off us - decent enough lad, but nowhere near the quality that Wigan had in their side back then.

I remember that, and also David Myers (RIP), both of whom seemed strange signings for them. Myers was no better than our other wingers at the time - Des Drummond, Mark Forster, Rob Myler, Neil Kenyon (also RIP) - and couldn't hold down a place.

Myers ran in quite a lot of tries for them, but who wouldn't have at the time?