...apart from the NSW and Australia selectors who thought he was good enough to be capped 12 times in each side over a period of several years.

We have the right to be too critical of our own players when we keep losing finals!!

Ah yes ... and how one or two love this wonderful "right" to moan and groan even when supporting a team having such a successful season. "Always look on the bright side of life" seems to have passed one or two by. Of course we'd love to win both finals but remember the song 1-2-3 ... always look on the ...
Cheer Up! You've never had it so good.
You lucky people! (T Trinder)

I don't think is wrong to highlight and discuss all areas where we can improve.
As we do commend when good(if not enough).
Nobody on here comes on and just says..,
Your loving shaat

I am surprised at the amount of stick Gidley is getting on here. If you look at it objectively, he brings a lot of cutting edge to the attack which we had lost when Briers finally retired. Cast your minds back a year or so and think just how toothless we were with ball in hand 10 or so metres from the opposition line. And with Sandow missing 12 or so weeks, he had to do much of that himself. Then there is the tackling, he doesn't simply take his man but seems to go looking for the major threat in the opposition line and then brings them down. In terms of organisation, you can see him calling both the plays and waving his arms during defence in order to keep the right spacing and the defence drifting. In the early part of the year his goal kicking was excellent - that has definitely dropped off, but I suspect he might have picked up some leg injury ? We don't see what happens on the training pitch, but I strongly suspect he will be mentoring the likes of Declan Patton as well as doing a fair bit more for some of our other younger players like Rhys Evans.

Is he Mr Perfect ? Nope. He does make mistakes both in terms of decisions with ball in hand and tackling, but who doesn't. And, he is getting noticeably slower. But I think he has been a canny buy, not just because he has filled a major hole at HB, but because of the amount of experience and knowledge he can bring to what is really a pretty young squad. I would imagine Patton must think he has died and gone to heaven - a top class player to learn from and also somebody whose shoes he can fill at the end of next year.

I think the issue is that in the GF we looked toothless with ball in hand 10 yards out, he made a bad tackle miss on Farrell leading to their try, and fluffed the last minute attacking play by not passing. He stopped kicking due to his hamstring if I recall. All in all he still offers us something but he will be one of the most highest paid players in the squad...and does he give us the best return on that?