Quote: No1 Saint "Inga was just massive and quick, if he'd have been up against full time players playing at professional clubs I'm not sure he would have had the same impact.'" He was and he did. He was also very skilfull, great hands.That try at KR when Connolly broke and gave Inga the inside ball was class. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc3yfpi9qIQ Then if you get a chance watch his tries for Wigan v Australia in that same (1994 season)

Quote: No1 Saint "Inga was just massive and quick, if he'd have been up against full time players playing at professional clubs I'm not sure he would have had the same impact.'" He was and he did. He was also very skilfull, great hands.That try at KR when Connolly broke and gave Inga the inside ball was class. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc3yfpi9qIQ Then if you get a chance watch his tries for Wigan v Australia in that same (1994 season)

Scott Gibbs certainly wins the prize for the centre most likely to break someone.

His own fingers in one try scoring movement against London Broncos at The Valley in '96.

Newlove is the best centre I've seen live watching Saints. Lyon a close second, with Simon Booth a close third.

Forget Lyon, newlove, Gibbs, talau, gidley etc because booth was all class!

Didn't he play most of his rugby in the backrow?

As great as Lyon was (and for two seasons he was the best centre to play for a team over here since Meninga or Danny Moore), Iro was unstoppable when he was on the top of his game and he did it for much longer than Lyon too. Similar with Newlove in that he was awesome when given the chance, however Connolly pretty much kept him quiet most of the time when they played against each other. Tuigamala was great but he was only in the game for a couple of years and so he'll always be a bit overlooked because he has no real period of longevity to assess.

Sully came over as very articulate and I also thought he gave a very honest appraisal of his own game.

He was definately a confidence player. On his day electryfying to watch and blisteringly fast and he scored some memorable tries. In other spells he was very erratic and lacked concentration and was very frustrating and he seemed to fully appreciate that himself.

Its an excellent programme and I do like Brian Carney's style.

That's Greg inglis isn't it?

GC was very fast over 100m. I recall him chasing Dean hanger and hanger having a 20 meter start on him, he chased him down and got him just before our try line.

Moving GC from fullback to centre was a master stroke, he was to slow at picking the ball up on kicks at fullback, it used to take him ages to pick it up, then he'd just trott up to the defensive line.

When he moved to centre, he gave his side great defence and was very good with the ball as he was quick and very very strong.

Saints have had some great centres over the years, lockers, Gibbs, newlove, iro, Lyon, talau and gidley but IMO it's a close contest between Lyon and newy.

Connolly was also one of these players who were naturally fit. I remember seeing him leaving the gound about an hour after a Wigan v Saints game at Central Park (he was still at Saints then) Connolly could hardly walk as he was leaving the ground, and looked in a lot of pain, and I thought that's him out for a few weeks.

Needless to say he was in the side for Saints the week after. He was a very strong and durable player.

The amount of beer he used to get through it's amazing he could play at the level he did.

SLSM was a good watch and just confirmed what I already knew, Gary was forced into the arms of the enemy by our short sighted board of the time.

I thought Connolly came across as insincere. If he wanted to stay with Saints, why did he go to Canterbury? Why was he willing to play for Wigan for free but whined about the offer Saints made? And why is he 'telling the truth' now but not then? There aren't as many holes in a teabag as there were in Connolly's story.

To be fair to Gary, he is thick as a bulls d*ck

Come on Saints fan cut him a break. He was going to Canterbury and was sold to Wigan. He asked not to go and wanted 3k more to stay at Saints. Board said no and he went to Wigan for double his wage.

He may have planned to go to Canterbury, but that's no worse than Graham. Could you imagine the constanation if the board told Graham no, but we've sold you to Wigan for 400k.

Interesting, though, that when people were speculating over what Eastmond might be wanting, people were thinking that maybe Eastmond was putting too high a value on himself? I think that might have been Connolly's problem also. We weren't in the same financial league as Wigan. And, as Connolly also said, how could anyone turn down playing for Wigan when they had all those great players (who they had doubled the wages of from other clubs no doubt!)?

I don't have to give him a break. He got all the money and glory he craved. I'm quite sure the rest of the Saints team of that time would have liked Wigan sized wages too but Saints were not in a position to pay. To me it all sounded like a fair deal: Connolly wanted out (first to Canterbury then to Wigan), Saints needed money. Fair dinkum.