Very true, the chance all depends on how you look at it I was assuming it being his injuries, TS seems happy enough with it all, I'm looking forward to seeing him play.

I think he is a great player Irishwire.
If he stayed at Sts as a hb, he would likely clash with Walsh's style.
Lance doesn't and thinking about it, neither would Myler if he ever went there.

Wheeler was always well liked at Saints as a youngster, had injury not hampered him, I'm sure he would be up there with the best. I've not known him from what I've seen on TV ever to have a poor game.
I think the Saints fans are just throwing a few knives at him for leaving and joining an enemy.

Although I don't know this, purely a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if his departure had something to do with Cunningham taking over as head. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't get along.

Those days were gone even when we had John Woods! He was shunted out of his best position so that Phil Blake could play in the halves. Still annoys me to this day.

Not me, loved Woods but Blake was the best player I have ever seen.

As a centre he was brilliant, in the halves not so much. Other way round with Woods.

I don't know, I had goggle blinkers on back then, I was in mesmerised by Blake.

Saints fans aren't throwing knives at anyone. Wheeler had many years in the first team and never made himself available for enough games to ever establish himself in the team. He finished this season a good couple of stone overweight. A lot of Saints fans have said it's a shame, he's clearly talented, but no one could justify giving him another deal. We are well aware of the possibility of him joining Wire, playing a good stretch of games and starting to fulfill his potential. It could well come back to bite us, but had we given him another deal questions would have had to be asked.

Wheeler was highly rated as a kid, many rated him higher than Kyle Eastmond. Whilst Kyle came through and established himself and got a big money move to Union, Wheeler has never progressed beyond being a young squad member. In the years I've watched him I can remember 40 minutes at Wigan where he looked superb, one amazing pass one time and one or two jinking runs of note. And that's in about 7 years. I honestly don't know much about him, does he have a kicking game? How fast is he in open space? Can he organise the team when playing in the halves? And when you can't answer questions like that about a player who is 25 and has been with the club all his life, it shows how little he's shown us.

I don't think there is anything in the Cunningham allegation you've made either. Everyone at Saints seems to be of the opinion that he's talented, but that he's had all his chances now. There are undertones that people don't think he is committed enough to the profession and a lot of question marks over his social circle and family. I don't know much about that, but it did always annoy me when he'd play 20 minutes after 3 months out, get injured, then post pictures of himself on the couch with a beer and a big bar of Galaxy on Twitter.

I'd wager a lot that Smith has Ratchford at 6 and O'Brien at 7 and Wheeler is a roll of the dice with the remaining salary cap that he's not relying on a return from.

What harm can it do to give him a go.... and if it all falls through then at least the rest of the team can get mates rates for their dogs being clipped at Shampoochies!

64 appearances since 2008

The grand final win has done funny things to you, this is far too sensible

Best story I heard about Gary Wheeler was from James Graham at a Saints fan forum.

It was the off season and a few of the boys were playing the drinking game "Slurred". Rules are simple, you have a subject and you go through the alphabet with each player in a circle having to say a word beginning with that letter, so for example Aussie cities would be, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, etc. Doubt I needed to explain drinking games to Wire fans but anyway...

Gary had lost the last game so got to pick the subject and go first...

Garyhttp://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out

You have been warned!

Sometimes you have to take a bit of a punt on a player with talent that's unfulfilled.

We did it with Bridge and there were a lot of question marks when he left Bradford, the usual story was "great talent BUT..." He supposedly had attitude problems, fitness questions and so on. It took a while to really fulfil his potential with us but when you look back now Bridge was one of our best signings for many years, he has been a superb Warrington player.

On Wheeler, I have to admit, I never understood why people always said he was so good. Saints fans used to hype him up when he was coming through, I couldn't see it, you always get coaches saying about him being a natural playmaker and so on, I can't remember us ever coming up against him and thinking he's a massive danger.

But the fact that he does have this high rating says something, and he's been given another chance with us, probably his last real chance of making it in a top SL club because if he gets released by us a the end of the season his next move will be somewhere like Hull KR, Wakefield or so on, or maybe the lower leagues.

We should get behind him and give him a chance, it would be great to see him achieve his potential with us and not Saints, after they put all the work in to his development, it would be like Briers all over again.

Sometimes these signings come off, sometimes they don't. I mentioned Bridge before, the other player I was very in favour of us signing was Dale Cardoza, who was a bit of a joke figure at Huddersfield but I thought when you saw his strength and speed, this guy could be an absolute monster of a centre, worth taking on the chance. Well that didn't come off.

Keith Holden springs to mind.

Good shout

Nick Fozzard