I’ve heard a lot of rumour about Isaac John and Tim Smith but can’t say I know loads about them, so I did some research.
I like the look of John. He isn’t hitting the top flight just yet but has proved to be able to run a team and make it successful at Toyota Cup Level. The Warriors keep offering him contracts and to use a Kear phrase he will be “well school-ed” after that time with such a big successful club.
We need a leader who can take control of the team and he sounds like he could be that from a technical point of view and from a generating team spirit point of view. The older heads in our team would take the pressure off in terms of Captaincy and would allow him to play.
I also like the idea of him being young and a Kiwi. I think history tells us that the Kiwis settle at English clubs much better than the Aussies do and long term signings are very often the Kiwis. I’d like to see him develop his career here rather than just be a short stop on the way to bigger things back home. I guess we’ll see. He can also wrack up the points: 400 in 45 games in NYC.
Tim Smith is the opposite end of the scale.
He’s been at the top and struggled to maintain it with minor injuries but in particular a bi-polar disorder that made it difficult for him to handle the media pressure in Oz.
His positives are that he has already played over here so won’t be surprised at the style of play in Super League, or the weather for that matter. He showed he can play when at Wigan and certainly has the credentials of organising a team and leading the way.
I do worry about the fact that he says he has his problems under control but that he hasn’t quite managed to get his career on track. That said, we are not Parramatta, Cronulla or the Broncos so maybe being invisible in Wakefield will do him good. He has to be serious about it though. If he wants to show what he can do he’d be great for us, if he is broken and wants to see out life on the quiet he isn’t for us.
On his bio he says he likes working with kids and developing the young players, which is great news for our half backs…..but he also says he loves surfing…..we have to be honest…not much of that in Wakefield Tim!
If we sign Obst, we only need one of them, and I’d go with John, but would be quite happy for these two to be our half back partners next year.
