For me, he's the dictionary definition of the Emporer's New Clothes.
The RL equivalent of
Ben and Jerry's
Coldplay
The new "must see" TV series from America.

We're led to believe that he guides us round the pitch, when, since our great start to the season, he's done anything but, as all we do is drives or dummy half scoots. You don't need to be a genius to work out our current style of play, so , in my book, he's a luxury (at a reported £200k) we can easily do without.

Just for balance, I think he's had a very good season.

As has the club.

i think he had a very good first half of the season.. But i do think, with no major trophy, that the Sandow and Gidley experiment may have to be classed as a failed one, especially when you consider that they are both probably the highest paid players at the club.

I would like to see Patton start in the halves next season every week..... i wouldn't be overly concerned if we lost one of the 2 big name aussie halves.

I think Gids gets let down by his runners to be fair .

there's the thing i've alluded to in the savelio thread, if you go back a few years, they say a good winger gets made to look good by a centre, but we've seen its the second row that makes the difference, logan swann and then for ages westwood, guided by briers made bridge and gleeson and whoever was on that right wing look excellent.

Gids has got jack hughes, who whilst good, isnt' dynamic or a big defence worrier and also rhys evans playing outside him.

Solid is the best you can say about them.

Im gonna make a bold prediction that he won't be in your team next year.
That Patton looks a real player and at 21 is still very young for an organising half, so if he plays at 7 and runs the game, you have to ask who is the more creative out of Sandow or Gidley to play next to him.

Gidley had 60 mins of the GF to create something with Patton doing all the tactical kicking and iirc correctly he didn't even get a line break assist?
Compare him to Danny McGuire, who I'm sure you all think is overrated, but has got a try or assist (often more than one) in all 8 GFs he has played in.

If you watch the final back Gids was putting in some awesomely timed passes , If that was gleeson outside him would be scaring defenses to death. However it just seemed that it got passed to Evans and the play died , No disrespect to Evans I have been one of his greatest fans this year but he needs to learn how to release his winger .

It's nothing to do with the runners, great halves make mediocre players look good.

You cannot have 2 big money halves and expect to have a world class backline as well.

The problem with Gidley is that his natural position is fullback but his legs went a long time ago, so is getting shoe horned into the halves.

And it hasn't worked in the big games, where the defences are tough to break down.

After watching back the grand final and watching Gidley confirm what I saw at the time tells me he's not the half back we need.

Our last play of the game. Gidley gets the ball and runs to the line. The centre is sucked in and so is Charnley. Gids has Atkins to run a line with Hughes stood out the back of him and Russell is in open space. Not a soul near him. All he would have to do is hit Hughes out the back who would than give it the Russsell to take us within two points. But instead he tries to burst the line himself and the rest is history.

Did he do that because he knew he wasn't confident to kick the 2 points from the touchline? Did he not pass because he thinks he's better than he is? Or did he not pass simply because he doesn't have the vision a top halfback does?

If Briers was in that situation or Sandow Russell would have ended up with the ball.


Its quite worrying that we went 60 Minutes in a game without scoring a point, something we've been unable to do consistently for a long time... Put points on the board. Our attack has been next to clueless in the second half of the season.

The Stats show us to be the best attacking side and the best defence in Super League. Most top pundits on TV and in the Press think Gidley has had a great positive influence throughout the season. He was selected in the Dream Team. I'm sure at least half the sides in Super League would love to have him. But Joe Soap (from Warrington) ... who thinks he knows the game inside out thinks he's useless. Are we just too critical of our own players?

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?