I attended the Damien Ball function a few weeks ago and that was his best time. It was all about scoring more points than the opposition with the likes of Penky terrorising the opponents.

Yeah on reflection seem to remember beating Whitehaven something like 74-46 and thinking this is a bit daft now lets drop the basketball and get back to a proper game..

That will be Fax 76 York 38 (attendance over 1,900) when Penky was awesome.

It was the week after our late NRC loss against Leigh at Blackpool (loved the day out despite the loss, it was the days before I became a partial armchair fan) and if I remember rightly that game was the beginning of the end re Calland's reign as there were rumours of players being drunk in Blackpool having shopping trolley races in which Calland took part.

pretty sharp considering his age then..

Not ready to be put down just yet IMO..

More than 5 years worth. Maybe that is why I don't have any hair.

Aye and all sponsored by Shackleton’s High Seat Chairs, there lovely.

No and didnt also take an instant dislike to newcomers for no particular reason other than they were better than he'd had previously..

Ive seen all sorts, the most frustrating always tend to be the ones with obvious talent who do not put in the same effort as others but ultimately it always boils down to results and there is no doubt it is a fine line between keeping players happy who are giving 100% and those who think they can just toss it off and still get picked.

That said though once you get to semi pro or above there are lots of ways to do research on players which is the thing that always gets me about Doro and Springer. Watch Springer pre-match and in game and taking in to account the number of clubs he has had, its pretty obvious there is something not quite right. There is no doubt it would be fair to say he is a bit on the lazy side, and that is without doing any deeper research but don't sign a player like that and then complain that he is lazy when you already knew that. Maybe Grix had a plan to get the best out of him which did not work out but at the end of the day we lost a player who created more tries through offloads/tackle busts than any other player in his time at the club, we also lost that to a rival club who then proceeded to get the best out of him.

The Doro situation was even stranger in my eyes as up until the alledged theft he was not in favor at all and it goes back to doing research on players. Questions must have been asked about his character and his liking for a flutter but his work ethic and attitude when it comes to training could have been discussed with multiple people at Widnes who had links to Fax yet Grix signed him and didn't deem him good enough to play most weeks despite us lacking obvious punch in the forwards. Doro now moves to SL to play for one of the best teams in the country.

We are in a totally different generation nowadays though where players have to be molly coddled where as back in the day stuff like the above would be dealt with in dressing rooms and it would be on to the next bit of drama.

It was the other way round with Doro being the lazy one in training and wether people know it or not he had a couple of injuries as well, one was against Saints the other before that was a calf issue if I recall correctly so through no ones fault he didn’t get off to the best of starts up until the shall we say showing he had a good pair of hands display and after that understandably there was no way back.

Springer was doing fine and played in every game with no problems until one night in the team review Grix was going over it with the squad and then from player to player when it came to Gadwin he was asked to be more disciplined especially when in possession and not be giving penalties away which he had done a couple of times away at Oldham where we lost, watch the game back it’s on the tube.
The bust up came from that, nothing really but GS didn’t like It and let his feelings be known and blew up.

I’ll have to check but I think it was the very next home game Springer still plays but after the final whistle when the team are coming off as a group Springer isn’t with them and comes off on his own and it quickly deteriorated from there and within a week or two he had gone.

Talking of due diligence and checking players out of course it was checked and interviewed and it’s there where you talk to a player and tell them what sort of job you want them to do, the conduct expected and if they are happy to do it, if they say yes then they get signed up and what comes next can’t be known for sure until it happens.

I know of a couple of points regarding the thinking to do with the QLT and Scott Grix decision and there’s a bit more involved with another player in the frame that played a part in the outcome that had nothing to do with favouritism but I’ll post that later.

PS: At the Fax v Fev home game managed to have a quick word with Gadwin asked if he was keeping alright and said we wished he was still with us, he simply said he was fine, smiled and said he was getting stuck in at Fev.

PPS: Don’t think I’ll bother with the QLT info after tonight’s announcement.