The only player in my Pooh house threshold was Andy Currier. Andy Gregory was a class player...just disappointed with him.

Sometimes it's difficult to appreciate how good a player is when hes playing for the opposition. I was certainly guilty of that whilst Murphy was at St Helen's & Leigh. However, when he played for the Wire it became obvious that he had an amazing kicking & passing game and was very quick off the mark. The trouble was he played an aggressive game and liked to mix it with the forwards and sadly, the years of punishment caught up with him.

I’m ashamed to admit this was me with Jiffy!

1. Brent Grose
2. Chris Hicks
3. Martin Gleeson
4. Chris Bridge
5. Joel Monaghan
6. Lee Briers
7. Chris Sandow
8. Chris Hill
9. Michael Monaghan
10. Adrian Morley
11. Louis Anderson
12. Ben Westwood
13. Simon Grix

14. Daryl Clark
15. Ben Harrison
16. Gareth Carvell
17. David Solomona

These are my favourite players that i actually saw play, and this would be the best squad in my opinion based on what i saw. I fell in love with Rugby league about 8 Games in to 2005 when i went to my first game and immediately found my sport as apart from Boxing i wasn't in to any other sport. Gutted i never got to see some of the players other people have named, i bet it was awesome

Hodgson
Monaghan
Gleeson
Davies
Hicks
Briers
Johns
Morley
Monaghan
Boyd
Westwood
Currie (pre-injury)
Gregory

Clark
Carvell
Hill
Solomona

1. Brett Hodgson
2. Des Drummond
3. Allan Bateman
4. Jonathan Davies
5. John Bevan
6.Bobby Fulton
7.Andy Gregory
8. Adrian Morley
9.Daryl Clark
10. Les Boyd
11. Tommy Martyn
12. Mark Roberts
13.Mike Gregory

14. Michael Monaghan
15. Mike Nicholas
16. Bob Jackson
17. John Woods

1. Brian Johnson
2. Des Drummond
3. Allan Bateman
4. Jonathan Davies
5. John Bevan
6. John Woods
7. Lee Briers
8. Les Boyd
9. Daryl Clark
10. Adrian Morley
11. Mark Roberts
12. Ben Westwood
13. Mike Gregory

14. Paul Sculthorpe
15. Ieystn Harris
16. Chris Hill
17. Michael Monaghan

Definitive. Give up everyone, competition over.

1. Brian Johnson
2. Des Drummond
3. Allan Bateman
4. Jonathan Davies
5. Chris hicks
6. Andy gregory
7. Lee Briers
8. Les Boyd
9. Daryl Clark
10. Adrian Morley
11. Mark Roberts
12. Bob jackson
13. Mike Gregory

14. Paul Sculthorpe
15. Ieystn Harris
16. Steve roach
17. Les davidson

I see most people have Drummond in their team. I put Hicks and Joel Monaghan in over him, a bit controversially. Dessie was a better athlete, in terms of his speed and acceleration, than either of them. JM was not in the same league as Dessie for athleticism. So why go JM ahead of him?

I had two question marks over Des.

First was, he could be a bit prone to errors. He wasn't the best under the high ball, and I think rival teams didn't exploit it as much as they would against others, probably out of respect/fear for Dessie and maybe they thought if you bomb him from distance and he takes it cleanly there could be trouble on if he had open space in front of him to build up speed. Also he did knock on sometimes, again out of respect for Des he didn't get the usual groans and moans that other players would have got from the Fletcher St End, it was just an awkward sigh.

Second was, considering Dessie's abilities, he never seemed to score that many tries. He scored some great ones for sure, and when the ball was working its way out to his side of the field you felt that only a small overlap needed to be on and he would burn off any defender round the outside. But he was less prolific than Forster and Tony Thorniley, who didn't have Dessie's physical gifts, in the years I saw him.

Admittedly I only saw his last couple of seasons, and maybe he was on the decline then and he was better when he first signed from Leigh, which others who have him in their all time teams saw.

And there lays the "problem" with Drummond, in your last paragraph, Sally.
In the last season or two, he became a bit accident prone, but, as I remember it, he did receive a fair bit of flak from the [ifaithful [/i, with plenty of "oh, FFS Dessie" heard. His game then resembled that poor season that Westwood had, a couple of years back, when BWs game consisted of knock ons, penalties, and just generally being a shadow of the man he was.... when he wasn't suspended.

Bar Offiah (who had fantastic pace, and an EXTREMELY underrated centre in Darren Wright, inside him) Drummond is the best British winger I've seen. You should have seen him, when he was at Leigh.
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And the noise that the Hilton Park speccies used to make whenever the ball was near him, was DEAFENING.

You got DD's career, in the same way I saw Mike Nicholas' last games for us, as a young 11 year old, when I first started watching. Everyone saw a club legend, I just saw an old bloke making lots of mistakes

It happens to the best of 'em.

That makes sense.

The part that still doesn't add up though, is why he didn't score more tries for us. It may be more of a reflection on the team rather than him. Even in those last couple of seasons of his career, Drummond was still very quick. He might have knocked on a bit but it wasn't like watching an ageing pro whose legs had gone. In these days before the full-time era, the best athletes stood out from the rest. I remember seeing Des standing on the wing close to the terraces, and thinking you could tell he was going to be fast, just by looking at him. He was very quick to get into full speed as well which is why he could get away from players.

Back then, you used to see some ridiculous try tallies from some players. Offiah would get 40 or 50 tries a season, then even some guys at lesser teams like Greg Austin or a young Anthony Sullivan were getting 30 odd, and Des would get about 10. Felt like we didn't do a good job of finding space for him to exploit.

Also, is this my memory playing tricks, or did Des do a lot out of work out of dummy half taking the ball up, in the days before wingers doing that became a thing?

Yes, Drummond and Forster (and Thackray, too) did a lot of that dummy half work.
I too can't explain him getting more tries for us, though. Maybe he was "over marked" by the opposition, plus he had Joe Ropati (another fave of mine) inside him, and Joe could be a little greedy with the ball.

Well I've had time to think and see other people's choices.
I decided the 'rules' that I am going to apply.

1. Must have played from the 83/84 season onwards (when I started regularly watching them).
[Although I went to some games from 1973, I only stared regularly following from 83/84 - so that means the likes of Ashcroft, Chisnall, Gordon, Murphy, Nicholas, Whitehead, Martyn and Kelly can't feature - some of them would have).

2. They must have played for us for at least a season
[Sorry Hiku, Johns]

3. Must be based on what I saw, and include a certain level of consistency (difficult to define accurately - but affected Ben Murdoch-Masila and Ben Curries inclusion)

Here goes -
1. Brett Hodgson
2. Chris Hicks
3. Allan Bateman ('The Clamp')
4. Jonathan Davies (simply impossible to miss him out - a true genius)
5. Joel Monaghan
6. Lee Briers
7. Alfie Langer
8. Adrian Morley
9. Michael Monaghan
10. Les Boyd
11. Mark Roberts
12. Ben Westwood
13. Mike Gregory
Subs
14. Daryl Clark
15. Bob Jackson
16. Chris Hill
17. Gareth Carvell

Notable mentions ie didn't quite make the cut.
1. Steve Hesford (unfortunately only saw the end of his career), David Lyon, Stefan Ratchford, Kurt Ridley, Iestyn Harris, Brian Johnson
2/5. Des Drummond, John Bevan, Richard Henare
3/4. Phil Blake, Gary Mercer, Toa Kohe-Love, Chris Bridge, Martin Gleeson, Matt King, Ryan Atkins, Bryson Goodwin
6. John Woods, Andy Gregory, Kevin Ellis
7. Greg Mackey, Chris Sandow, Nat Wood
8/10. Danny Nutley, Ben Harrison, Mike Cooper, Paul Wood
9. Duane Mann
11/12. Alan Rathbone, Logan Swann, Simon Grix, Louis Anderson, Trent Waterhouse, David Solomona
13. Paul Sculthorpe, Vinnie Anderson

Could almost make another 2 teams with the 'notable mentions'.

It would be interesting to see if 'my' team could gel especially when you have so many real rugby brains in that team (Hodgson, Davies, Briers, Langer, M.Monaghan, M.Gregory - not to mention Clark on the bench!).

Cheers

www.eraofthebiff.com/announcemen ... warrington

www.eraofthebiff.com/announcemen ... warrington

You've not done yours, yet, LTS.