After reading the post about young players this came to mind and I have posted it on the Wigan board.
Feel free to comment or add to it (Saints players)


Players who either could have or should have done better.

Could have

Chris Melling.
Outstanding prospect, great kicker, good pace, an organiser and talker from the fullback position. Could have been England fullback. Sadly, two serious knee injuries knocked his confidence and caused him to lose his pace. A real sad loss.

Nigel Wright
A really talented stand off whose career was again blighted by injuries, and never fulfilled his true potential.

Should have

Simon Haughton
One of the most devastating running back row forwards in the modern game. GB International, who should have been a top performer. IMO he started believing his own "golden boy" publicity and gave up on the hard work.

Chris Ashton
Great potential, loads of pace, but an awful attitude on and off the pitch.
However, he is young enough to sort himself out so there may be hope, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Doogal.

Bit childish there possibly? Not questioning your deletion of my post but hey? I wasn't being serious but even if I was, why would it be something worthy of your strop?

He mentioned that Ashton had a bad attitude but could sort it out, and the last thing I heard on Ashton was a Eurosport piece about how he was likely to break some scoring record and was looking a likely choice for England selection.

Ashton got dropped at the end of last season at Northhampton for his "attitude" problems. He has played some games this season.

back on topic, ste bannister was highly rated here (maybe not going to international level) before he started believing the hype

Jace van Dijk, should have played for Australia.

Steve Maden. He was lauded on here at one time.

Danny Arnold. Looked a superstar in the making. He scored a shedfull on the wing as a teenager and many thought he would develop into a top class fullback.
Something however went wrong, he lost pace, confidence and all but disapeared.

Tony StewartKevin Mcormick. Brilliant young winger, centre, stand off and even fullback. Earned GB under 21 honours and was tipped to play for GB before suffering a hamstring injury that was exacerbated by an act of thuggery by pie scum Shelford. Never got fully over the injury or the incident and lost confidence. Disapeared from the game within 18 months.

Interesting thread, this one.

Some that come to mind are:

John Kirkpatrick - remember him scoring a hat-trick against Leeds and looking like he had real potential as a decent finisher before he slipped off the radar.

Stuart Jones - always really liked this kid, he was a good strong-running mobile back-rower who I think had the captaincy at Wigan going through his age groups. Was made up when we got him and not sure why it didn't work out for him.

Dwayne West - a handy, speedy threequarter who IMO would have done well for us if not for injuries.

Dom Feaunati - was keeping Gardner out of the team for a period before he got in hot water for biting a kid or something.

and dare I say it...

Ste Tyrer - people were touting him as the next Lyon but he has fell by the way-side in a big way and it looks like his Saints career is probably over, unless he rips it up at Salford this year.

There are loads really, Jonkers...Stankevitch...all looked the part but their careers tailed off due to injury, rule changes, attitude...etc...

he has played some games this season...he has played quite a long stretch of games now as first choice winger and has been on fire resulting in player of the month for december and a brief england call up. Mallinders choice to drop him for discipline or poor form has been the boot up the ar*e he needed

Ricky Bibey.
Was a promising youngster at Wigan before moving to Saints and looked good in the pre season, but then broke his jaw and when he came back he looked rubbish.

He still got a decent medal haul, though!

John Hamilton

Danny Orr! Really looked to have a great future, until he signed for Wigan (and before they start, that's not a dig at Wigan)

The impression I get is he's very popular at london and they prefer him to Leuleui. Obviously the set up at Wigan wasn't getting much out of him.

Still not setting the world alight like was anticipated at Cas IMO