That speaks volumes for our alleged strength in depth and youth doesn't it. Thank goodness 2017 is all over with it. I cant wait for the first autobiography that covers this period to find out what really went on.

We’ll never find out, unless Sean Long agrees to ghost write for somebody. Now THAT was an autobiography...

Strange comment about KP not catching. Didn't Smith have him swapping to Fullback and Russell to wing whenever a kick was likely.
My point about Penny however was "what might have been" had he been given a fair crack of the whip.

Yes he came through under Cullen then Smith shipped him on. I wonder what good one-on-one wing coaching would have done for him. Was solid defensively and under the high ball in his second spell, even though he’d lost some pace.

Penny wasn't that good, full stop, get over it, move on.

It wasn't some big conspiracy that no other super league club bothered with him. He was quick with good agility, thats about as far as his rugby talent went... good enough attributes in the under 18s, not good enough at the professional level.

He just didn't have a rugby brain, or the physicality to make up for it. He wasn't a rugby player to put it bluntly, he was a decent athlete who happened to get given a rugby ball.

Cannot believe people are still going on as though he was Martin Offiah, and Tony Smith prevented him from dominating the sport.

I don't know.
Put him outside a centre with a timed pass...things might have kicked on from his entry in the Dream Team.

I think what really did for Penny was that
a) he lost form at a bad time
b) we made new signings that squeezed him out
c) he got injuries that took the edge off his pace

The off season after Penny's breakthrough year, we signed Hicks, and the following season Riley had his own breakthrough year. Most of that season, Penny and Riley were the wingers with Hicks at fullback, but Riley outperformed Penny. The next year, Penny started badly, and got dropped and Matt King moved to the wing for a while. Tony Smith came in with Penny already out of the side, King's form started to improve rapidly after a disappointing first season (later to settle back in at centre), and then we signed Mathers. Penny was out of the side, watching us now winning games and transformed as a team, there was no way back in to dislodge a back three of Mathers, Riley and Hicks who were all fit and in form.

People criticised Smith for letting Penny go out on loan but when you're winning games and players are performing well, there's no rationale for dropping them. Letting him out on loan was a sensible choice rather than letting him waste in the reserves, but he didn't do much in his loan spells, which contrasted to when the same happened to Riley who went away and did well and earned his way back in to the team.

Also Penny seemed to have injuries and lose pace at this point. All those Offiah pace comparisons apply to Penny's first couple of seasons but after that he was reasonably quick but not in the extreme shock pace category any more.

After all that, Penny deserves a lot of respect because very few players climb back to SL after dropping down the divisions but he did and re-established himself as an SL standard player. He ended up playing past the time Riley had been finished as an SL player. As easyWire says, he had improved his all round game when he came back second time he just didn't have the same edge of pace. Reminded me of Toa's second spell. But also watching him second time round, I never thought he was the best winger at the club and I never thought he would have got in the team had Hicks still been there.

Yup he had pace early on but once that started to fade and we made a few signings then he was always going to struggle to get back

I would suggest that smith never brought him back and that is the primary reason he was not called upon.

We can look back at many players maybe if we had andrew johns coaching the halves Jamie' durban or gay hulse would have been regular internationals or if had the specialist winger coach then richard varkulis would hold the record for most tryst scored in a game.

We can nevee know what may have happened had he improved upon the potential he had initially shown but I've heard some bonkers reasoning for it as far fetched as a bit of grief from some saints fans as a reason why he didn't

I still maintain that Penny with his game knowledge and speed could have secured a regular place at Superleague level on the wing ... with a flag in his hand.

Anyone who says penny couldn't catch needs to think about what they are saying. Bar Joel, he was the best under a high ball we have had in the smith era and if he had played at wembley in 2016 we would have won, seeing as Hull's tactics in both their final wins was a last tackle bomb to the corner. Unfortunately we had a five foot six midget who is inept under a high ball on our wing.

Did you not forget that Russell did score at Wembley

Chris Riley did OK with the same centre

We wanted penny to do well the speed he had was exciting and he shown potential to be a very good winger. He could catch a ball most rugby players can its a consistency thing. Wings a cruel position to play and you can either look like a great or a fool.

Russel lacks confidance issue going back to the bad facial injury he had not ability if he can regain that formula will be a different player completely but I feel that until we replace russel with a try scorer and atkins with a try creatorwe will fall short of gf success.

He did but that was also a period when we would do more attacking than defending.

Once you start getting in to making excuses for Penny it undermines the argument that he was an Offiah-style talent that could create something out of nothing.

We have all these if onlys...

- if only he hadn't been dropped when he was out of form, because being dropped affected his confidence
- if only he'd played outside a better centre than Matt King
- if only he'd played for top teams rather than being shipped on loan to Harlequins/Widnes and Wakefield

....he would have been an elite winger

Yes maybe he would have scored a lot of tries with all that help but that wouldn't have marked him out as a special elite player. Why did nobody else pick him up? Leeds...Wigan...NRL clubs, these teams have all the things in place to make the best out of young talent - if he was a once in a generation kind of player like people claim, why did they not pick up up for relatively nothing and take a shot on him?

I don't want to be knocking him/arguing against him because I liked him, I was happy when we brought him back and as with all our academy products I wanted him to be successful but I think we have to be realistic - he was a decent player who worked hard to fight back to have a top flight career but the mythology around him is a bit embarassing.