It's a sorry fact that despite the money brought in from the TV rights and SKY, and SL, we will never see talents like that (Blake/Davies/Hanley/Scofield/Offiah again in our sport.

Bob Jackson, Brian Johnson & Les Boyd. They all came over here at a similar time. They lasted a few years over here.

Tbf,
Was Jackson a regular down under, in 1983?

Johnson was at the fag-end of his career, and we squeezed 3 years out of him. He was never going to usurp Jack, Belcher, Eadie, et al, for the Aussie No 1 jersey.

And Boyd, well no Aus club would touch him with a pooey stick.
The Aussie transfer embargo ended in time for the 84-5 season, and not many came over here for more than the 5 month stint .

Johnson was only 28 when he came here.

This was the era before the NZ Warriors, so there was no elite level professional club option for the New Zealanders. Some played for Aussie clubs but the option of a career in the UK was more important to the Kiwis than the Aussies.

However, the flipside of those days when our season didn't run at the same time as the Aussies, was there was the option for elite Aussie players to do an off-season stint in the UK without affecting their Australian club career. So you had the top Kangaroos players like Sterling, Kenny, Meninga, Lewis coming over as well as guys like Blake. That would be the equivalent now of being able to sign Thurston, Cronk, Inglis, Slater for half the season over here....which would give our game a major profile boost.

The key point is both those players would have easily got in the Warrington team had we kept them, and would have been better than the players we replaced them with.

The one player who did get one over on us by winning honours was Martin Gleeson. Despite the fact that Gleeson had been a very good player for us, and was the signing that really kicked us off as a team to be taken seriously, he seemed to have become unpopular with our fan base by the end. I think it was because by the end of 2008 he seemed to be seriously peed off with playing in an underperforming team that was not going to win trophies and he looked like he was sulking, although in terms of performances he was still playing quite consistently well for us. He then went to the 2009 World Cup and was one of England's best players and looked sharp and motivated when he was playing for England, more than he did for us. One of TS first decisions was to move Gleeson on to Wigan and sign Mathers in return, I remember that being a popular decision amongst our fans, proof that TS "didn't care about reputations". Gleeson then went on to win Super League with Wigan although his career did tail off alarmingly after that point. I think we got rid of Gleeson about 18 months too soon.

Those tries at Elland Road (v Halifax) and Knowsley Road (v Wigan), and there were others, if only Wire had someone that could do that in the current squad.
He somehow looked like he was slow, while being the proverbial off a shovel.

Lets sack off summer rugby, go back to an August to May season and get them over here as soon as!

The Briers/Gleeson link was very special. When those two meet up (now) they will know about that.

The whole of that right side was superb.
Add to those names, Swann and Fa'afili
Pretty good

Glees got shown the door has he was actively trying to get a contract in the Nrl, which Tony smith didnt want to deal with so used him as a bargaining chip.

Hindsight's a wonderful thing, Sally, but personally, I think Smith played a blinder, for all concerned.
Smith's man management skills indentified a problem with Gleeson (I'd heard one or two stories about his off field behaviour, if they were true, maybe it was for the best)
Gleeson's Wire career had "platteaued" a bit, but still better than most
We get a fresh player, and a ton of money, in the bank.
Gleeson goes on to win a GF for his hometown team, we win 3 CCs in 4 years.

Everyone's a winner, pot pourri, as Del Trotter would say

Best thing TS ever did as departure of players go, was getting rid of Gleeson...and we got a 6 figure deal off the Pies too.

Gleason had a negative effect on the rest of the squad. He may have won a GF with Wigan but he was pretty much out of the door soon after. Another huge talent wasted by attitude. That 2005 season showed he was clearly one of the most talented centres in world RL when in shape and motivated.

Plus, Mathers’ three try-saving tackles in the first 10 minutes of the 2010 cup final allowed us to dominate the next 70 minutes.... no world beater but a massive positive influence on the squad. And didn’t throw his dummy out when hodsgon was signed.

Watching the Eng v SA RU game and staggered to suddenly see Jon Clarke walk on to the pitch with water bottles, that had passed me
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