Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Richie Eyres at Widnes was better than most forwards around, better than any backrower we see now in Super League.

Richie Eyres at Leeds, was the biggest dissapointment I have seen in a player at Leeds. Dissapointment becuase he was so damn good before coming here, and so damn cr@p when here.

I'd agree with this. He was part of that horrible Widnes pack, and a total pussycat at Leeds. I suspect the weight of his wallet limited his ferocity a bit.

He stands alongside Bradley Clyde in the disappointing backrower stakes. It wasn't Clyde's fault he got injured, and I don't blame him for it, but he was real world class and we never really saw it at Leeds.

Ah the Bionic Barrel .... Lovely stuff



My early(ish) hero was Kevin Dick ( pretty close to been a mini mee bionic barrel ). Even then I use to question the erudition of the head coach. Why was Sammy Sanderson preferred ??

My late father used to call Les a ponce. Damn fine player though. Did he not play stand off once at least too? Bet TVOC can enlighten me

Ah yes, the inimitable Steve Pitchford. I remember a night game in Cas when their ginger winger of that time (Richardson I think) put his head in the wrong place when attempting a tackle. You could hear the smack as his head hit Pitchford's thigh from the other side of the ground. Needless to say his further participation was, shall we say, a little on the tentative side

I never thought Eyres [ithat[/i good Gotcha. I thought Emosi Koloto was a much scarier and more skilful player in that Widnes backrow.

I thought Eyres was brilliant when at Widnes. And it's not like it was just one season, he was consistent. Comes to Leeds, and yeah then he certainly wasn't "that good".

The whole gestalt entity was pretty scary if you ask me.

Perhaps scarier than the sum of its parts though, with hindsight.

I don't know if Eyres was so good he was better than anything else around or the best players today, but he was certainly a LOT better than we saw at Leeds. That was the disappointment. It's that difference in relative performance that makes him the biggest of let downs at Leeds.

With regard to hindsight, I doubt many people thought he was a naff signing at the time.

Les Dyl was a good player,unfortunately one of my lasting memories of him was his performance for Great Britain at the sell out test match at boothferry park hull.
This against one of the best Aussie sides of recent years,he was swatted aside several times as the Aussies beat us.
Regarding richie eyres, he claimed injury for several months and I believe we still had to pay him his contract money.
For a long time around that period we made some awful signings.

At Widnes, Eyres had the likes of Grima and Sorensen frightening the bejesus out of opposition packs so he could do all the fancy running over half-backs stuff out in the channels.

At Leeds, they gave him Neil Harmon and Harvey Howard to protect him.

On Les Dyl, bit harsh to have your abiding memory of him being taken apart at the end of his career by a young Mal Meninga. A fine centre equally capable of scoring himself or setting tries up for his winger.

I'm taking my childhood Les Dyl obsession abit too far by sporting a look alike Tash during Movember.
Only prob is i no longer have a full head of 70's hair.

On reflection it was a bit harsh, I did qualify it be saying I thought he was good player.
In mitigation for him, the Aussie side were to use an over worked word awesome . All the big names were in the squad,and firing on all cylinders .

Isn't Les still the record Leeds try scorer? I thought he was over the 400 mark.

I agree, a bit harsh to judge him on the season he "retired" considering he made his debut for Leeds as a 16 year old and was widely thought of as the best in the world on the '74 tour .

On Richie Eyres, I thought as a youngster he was a horrible peice of work, his main weapon the late head high shot. No doubt he ran hard and was a part of that 'orrible Widnes pack but by the time he came to Leeds the game had changed around him and out and out thuggery was on the decline. I think without that edge he was much less of a player. But as we know many came to Leeds in those days with the attitude that it was a paid holiday camp, especially Dougie's ex-Widnes chums who constantly gave the impression that Leeds was a joke club and not as good as where they had come from.