Quote: Wellsy13 "That still played 126 games in 5 years for you guys. That recurring knee injury sure slowed him down! He's only a back up to the back up anyway, behind Ellis, Tickle, Whiting and Westerman. He's there to offer some experience.
Any player can pick up a significant injury at any time. Doesn't mean they won't recover or that they're recurring or injury prone.'"
Ben Galea first picked up his knee injury in 2008 and each time it has reoccured, he's spent slightly more time out until last season when he was out for 12 weeks with it and it wasn't even a heavy tackle, more like a stray boot that caught his knee.
When he returned it took him longer to get to full-fitness and in some performances such as the Good Friday derby and Catalans at home in the cup he was utterly pedestrian but he obviously had enough runs on the board from the previous 4 seasons for most of the fans to even bat an eye lid.
Ben Galea is my favourite Rovers player of the SL era but we got half a dozen games worth of 20+ you should expect when paying a player a 100k+ salary and I'm glad the club have put a stop to wasting money and sought out a replacement in Cory Paterson who should provide far more value for money.
Quote: Wellsy13 "Ellis has played 22-24-18-11 games in his four seasons. So other than a broken foot (which he's recovered from after being out for 15 weeks and was playing for the rest of the NRL season), he's not really has any significant time out of the season. Couple of niggles here and there which are part and parcel of the game.'"
Ellis's stats over the last few seasons have already shown a decline in output of games and regardless of how good he is or isn't, he's 32 so time is against him.
Quote: Wellsy13 "You can try all you like to paint FC's signings out to be injury ravaged crocks, but you're only highlighting your own envy.
If Hudge had the money, he'd have been after all of them.'"
This is where you are deluded and caught up in a wave of emotion about what signings you've actually made.
I'm pretty sure Rovers looked into signing Ellis on a 2 year deal but certainly not 3 and not on the type of money you are paying him.
I've covered Ben Galea but suffice to say, you're deluded if you think even if we were spending the full cap, we'd be spending 100K plus on retaining a 34 year old with half a dozen decent games last season - we'll leave that to another club.
As for Scott Prince, to suggest we'd sign a 32 year old on mega bucks when we have a proven 26 year old SL scrum-half in Dobson suggests that you are not only deluded, but stupid.
Pearson talks with a lot of passion but you can tell when he talks that he doesn't really understand the game; referring to Holdsworth to "get the team in the right places to attack" when he is not an organisational type of player at all - more of an individual with good creativity approaching the line.
I've have enough of my club signing players for "experience" - experience of what? - giving the club's physio plenty of practice? fetching cups of tea for the coach cos he's at a loose end in the stand?
No players go out to get injured, but I'm glad my club have stopped wasting money on such players and even when the investment comes in, I still want the club to be careful who they spend money on.