Whoever it was I'm sure he was furious about it at the time.

That being said, the signing wasn't my point, it was the location, as If that actually makes a difference.

How could anyone forget

Genuinely I didn’t know “Strictly come Angling” was a thing. As for televised fishing, I thought it was trawlermen plucking crabs from stormy oceans.

Wasn't furious at all. It was quite the event. Very glad that the racism and drug issues did not happen on our watch though. Bullet dodged. Imagine calling a player a "black c you next tuesday" nowadays...

In retrospect I wonder if the club owners now wished they had put more focus and drive into developing a league winning squad and coach rather than a novelty PR signing.

Fingers crossed we are on the right path now.

Flaming hell Wire71. Who did we sign as a PR exercise to make up for us losing to Hull?

Quote ="Smiffy27"Flaming hell Wire71. Who did we sign as a PR exercise to make up for us losing to Hull?'" I never said it was to make up for losing to Hull FC. I said "it was Ok as we had made a PR signing". In the absence of Google, IIRC we signed a player called Andrew Johns (after a chance meeting at Lords Cricket ground between Moran and his agent) for the final 2 games of the regular season plus 1 playoff game that we got stuffed in. There was much excitement about signing a living RL legend and the PR that it generated. There was a loophole in the SL player registration rules that allowed this. The first of our stunt signings which predated Karl Fitzpatrick. Garndiose claims of pushing for a title, created a big hoo-har at the time and, as usual, Wire fizzled out in the playoffs after finishing 4th. Johns went on to sully his reputation by making a racist remark about Greg Inglis, "black c***" (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2010/ ... reg-inglis) and admitting to taking recreational drugs through his playing career.(https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2007/ ... ugsinsport) Like I said, fingers crossed we are on the right path now.

Quote ="Smiffy27"Flaming hell Wire71. Who did we sign as a PR exercise to make up for us losing to Hull?'" I never said it was to make up for losing to Hull FC. I said "it was Ok as we had made a PR signing". In the absence of Google, IIRC we signed a player called Andrew Johns (after a chance meeting at Lords Cricket ground between Moran and his agent) for the final 2 games of the regular season plus 1 playoff game that we got stuffed in. There was much excitement about signing a living RL legend and the PR that it generated. There was a loophole in the SL player registration rules that allowed this. The first of our stunt signings which predated Karl Fitzpatrick. Garndiose claims of pushing for a title, created a big hoo-har at the time and, as usual, Wire fizzled out in the playoffs after finishing 4th. Johns went on to sully his reputation by making a racist remark about Greg Inglis, "black c***" (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2010/ ... reg-inglis) and admitting to taking recreational drugs through his playing career.(https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2007/ ... ugsinsport) Like I said, fingers crossed we are on the right path now.

Ah ... I understand now. I quite enjoyed the Johns bit & didn't link us losing vs Hull to his signing.
The fact that we got Big Sam as coach shows we still like to aim high. Long may it continue but still work hard on development of our young stars too.

The Hull game was Johns's last game for us. Hull fans were singing "He's going home ".
It is obvious with some of our less illustrious recruits that they have come for a holiday & a last pay day.

No I am not suggesting for one minute we lost against Hull due to Johns. We lost against Hull FC because Paul Cullen was a very limited coach who could not get any consistency into his star studded side.


Johns was the "distraction" signing. Club focussed on big PR ego signings whilst taking the eye off the main price (if it was ever on it)

Being a little unfair I think, several clubs made high profile signings that year I think? Bradford signed Morley, seem to recall Hull FC signing someone? Johns was a good signing who was due to sign a full time deal with us later on following his short spell, but injury put pay to that.

Yeah maybe I am. But he was always going back to Newcastle for 2 years after his 3 game stint with us.

As it turns out I got all knee jerk animated by that Genge crap and it brought back some bad memories (Inglis, Burrell etc).

We have history here, as Kevin Penny played cricket locally at Appleton, prior to wearing the P&B.

I'm certain that if Paul Whitehouse, Robson Green and Claudia Winkleman are sat in the North Stand on Saturday, then the Sky cameras will no doubt locate them very, very quickly.

A neck injury curtailed his career, so we'll never know whether, or not, he would have honoured the deal it was rumoured he had signed with us. I'm with you on Genge, it would just be a distraction signing, whereas the Johns one definitely had good media impact at the time.

I didn't realise they were famous anglers. My 2 brothers have both dabbled at times but just seems like a lot of faff followed by a lot of waiting.
I have noticed that canal anglers have rods that reach all the way to the other side of the canal. Ive always wondered why they didn’t just sit on that side and droop their line in from there.?

Because the fish would see you and move to the other side…A friend told me.

SM? Surely you mean Gary Chambers?

Anyway, are we still on the look out for an established half back? I'd be a little concerned going into 2025 with Leon Hayes and Oli Leyland.

I think Williams, Leyland & Hayes plus another would be too many in that position?

Hayes showed that he was more than capable of being our first choice 7 in 2025 and I was slightly concerned when I heard we were looking for an 'established 7'.

We'll still have Stef Ratchford next season too, don't forget. Hopefully Hayes is fit and well enough to start the season alongside Williams, with Stef and Leyland (assuming that actually happens) as back-up.

My brother also used to dabble on the Bridgewater, and bought the permits or whatever they were called. I myself never saw the attraction of it, as I was bored within a few minutes, but accept that it's the most popular participation sport in the country and a lot of people enjoy it. I'd rather go out and run 5k (10k on the odd day that my body isn't telling me how old I am).

As for fishing on the opposite bank, I think it might have something to do with you having more of an opportunity of a catch, should the fish not be able to see you. I'm sure there will be a Jack Hargreaves amongst us who will supply the proper answer.

I love it when anglers talk about a "battle of wits" with the fish.

Ah yes, the famous angling Hook brothers - Bait and Worm, I believe they're called?

Not really the same as Burrell though in terms of idiocy.

Genge a significantly better player than Burrell, he’s also younger, and not considerably past his best. Probably harder conditioning wise for a prop, who would be significantly heavier than the RL equivalent. Would make no sense for a RU prop to come across though cause it would remove the scrum, which is half of a props job in RU anyway. That’s why they get the big bucks

There are plenty of players from Union who could migrate across, and that works both ways. Just need to identify the right players, rather than random choices and going for big names. Don’t know why Union don’t do it more often, guess the risk isn’t worth it and the gap isn’t as big as it used to be. Sale have a few former RL youngsters on the books for example, so they are trying to grab them younger. Think it is fairly common for young lads to play both codes at age group level as well.

Lots of those highlights are fairly old, so probably before the high tackle framework was introduced. League is now more strict and irrational re high tackles, cause they took too long to deal with it and are clearly in a massive panic about it.

Don’t get the issue re defence. You could show highlights of League players and the defence wouldn’t look great in isolation. Suspect you could have a 5 min video of Sita Akauola bouncing people! Obviously defence is still stronger in League, and that will always be the case. There is also a bigger size gap from player to player.

Nah they ar my cousins. My younger brothers are Line and Sinker

I'm just tickled by the fact that Claudia Winkleman is into fishing. You learn something new every day on this forum.