Stuart Fielden...

Quote: sally cinnamon "Some of the posts on here about Fielden being a bottler are ridiculous. At the end of the 2006 season his Mum got diagnosed with cancer and died a month later. Straight after that he had to fly out to the GB tour, leaving his family to go and play Test RL. That was the tour where Willie Mason took a cheap punch at him off the ball. 99% of the people on these messageboards would have pulled out of that tour if they had lost their Mum suddenly, and with hindsight maybe Fielden should have but one thing he isn't is a bottler.

As for being a bottler because he signed for Wigan rather than testing himself in the NRL....what do you reckon of Tony Smith as a coach, he won two Grand Finals with Leeds and his brother is one of the most high profile coaches in Australia, he would have been able to get an NRL job just like Matthew Elliot, Shaun McRae and Daniel Anderson did, but he chose to come to Warrington. Does that mark him out as a bottler? Will he always be a bottler unless he quits us and takes an NRL job to prove he's good?

Fielden has proved himself at the highest level, he took on the Aussies in Ashes series in 2001 and 2003 and in the Tri Nations 2004 and was one of the best forwards in the series every time, he's been there and done it against the best so he didn't need to go to the NRL to prove himself. Jamie Peacock hasn't played in the NRL either, neither did Farrell or Scully but I would put them all more or less in the calibre of Adrian Morley as greats of the game.

Fair enough his career went on a downward spiral after 2006, as has been pointed out above he is probably paying the price for when he was playing 70-80 minutes taking some massive punishment as a young player at Bradford. Unlike Morley, Graham and Sam Burgess at the same age, Fielden's early days were in a Bradford team which relied on juggernaut forwards acting like battering rams to steamroller the opposition, you had experienced old pros lke Anderson, Jo Vagana and Brian McDermott coming on and off the interchange and then you had the young lad doing the same virtually all game. Back in 1999 when Mal Reilly released his book he said he feared for the future of young forwards like Stuart Fielden and Martin Lang because of the way they played the game....Martin Lang retired through injury about the time that Fielden started to go downhill, I think there was something in what Reilly had to say.

Fielden has got three Grand Final rings, two Challenge Cups and two World Club Challenge medals, a stack of GB caps and the respect of every forward in the game. His career has slipped from its early heights but he's still a first teamer in the team that's top of Super League so if that's how far he's fallen then he's not had a bad career.'"

Top draw post.

Fielden has had a fantastic career and whilst he's not quite the player he was he's still a very good prop forward. He's had a superb season for us this year and was excellent again last night. He's played a huge part in our season and we'd all be gutted to see him leave if he does at the end of this season.

I always make the point about his mother when people criticise his loss of form. Alot of people point to the Mason incident but it was a tough time for him. I read that after the Mason incident he was sat in the changing rooms asking how his mother was when she'd actually died a few weeks previous. That is heartbreaking and no wonder rugby seemed to take a backseat for him for a while. That sad incident along with the Mason thing and his high profile move to Wigan making him a target added up to a couple of tough years for him but he's bounced back over the past 18 months or so and whilst he'll never be back to the old rampaging Fielden he's playing some top class rugby league.