Chris Rudd, Gary Chambers and Basil Richards were all touted as potential world-beaters when we signed them. *SIGH*

Lee Briers.

Has flashes of genius, was often hampered previously by mediocrity around him, nor has he been given the opportunities at International level, but simply hasn't been consistent enough over the years.

Great club servant, but a little short of being a true club legend perhaps.

Fantastic that he's somewhat rejuvinated under TS now though.

Rick Thackray. Looked like the answer to all our prayers for a devasting new winger back at the beginning of the 1980s, and even played for GB Under 21s. Lost his momentum somehow and I think he ended up as a mediocre player at Widnes.

Have to agree
Imagine if Lee had had TS helping him in his early 20's at Wire, I genuinely believe Lee Briers would have tore up SL.
Fantastic mercurial player dogged by inconsistency

I simply don't understand that.

I think Johnson and Penny were 2 of our best full backs in the last 20 years.

Penny was strong, good under the high ball - I only saw him drop one high ball - scored tries and returned the ball strongly.

Certainly wasn't a great passer of the ball ! but any player who scores 20 tries in a season and plays 100+ games for Wire can't be bad.

Now Dave King on the other hand was a giant Ozzie donkey who did s@d all for us.

You are on about Lee penny, Peckerwood is on about kevin penny

The Jackson brothers - one was meant to be on the verge of the Aussie test squad.

The other one did actually go on to score a match winning try in Aussie Grand Final.

How can Briers be down as an under achiever. When we had just sold Iestyn Harris, the biggest talent in the northern hemisphere, and got a teenage Briers with a handful of SL games at Saints, if someone had said then that Briers was going to be, at his best, the top halfback in SL, win two Challenge Cup medals and the Lance Todd, we would have classed that as fulfilling everything we wanted out of him.

People say he was not consistent enough earlier in his career, but how many players have there been who were consistent in their early and mid 20s, and spend the last 5 years of their career in a slow but steady decline....(Harris was a good example), Briers is unusual in that he's got steadily better year on year even past 30.

Think of the other British halfbacks who were 'more consistent' than Briers earlier in their careers - Ryan Sheridan, Paul Cooke, Richard Horne, Chris Thorman, Paul Deacon. Compare all of them when they were aged 25+ and compare them to Briers aged 25 plus and none of them were in his league.

I used to be a cynic about Briers for years but IMO on the basis of the later years of his career you can't say he is an unfulfilled talent, he steadily got better through his career and when he became the finished article he picked up the medals to go with it.

Neil Parsley, or I think that was his name,(correct me if i'm wrong Bick) watched him in a CC game at Hunslet, after slagging him off for most of the first half, we found out most of his family were sat behind us. Oops

Jon Roper; had it all. Explosive pace and power, unfortunately, he didn't seem to want to input the corresponding ingredient; application.

Lee briers???? dont be silly.

But Lefty Goldblatt mentions Lee Penny. I can't understand that either. Dependable fullback, scored 100 tries for the club. What else do you want?

I agree.

I know the OP has said British players but it has to be Toa Khoe Love for me (oh i do realise he qualified for GB )

My problem with Toa was his defence and his reluctance to improve it..When an opposition player was bearing down on him he'd just step to the side and swing his arm around chest level more often than not ending up round the neck resulting in penalties...Complete liability....
With a bit of hard work i thought he could have been one of our best ever centres....