Wainwright got the mythology too. To some he was "hands of e" to others he was the next Harry Pinner.

So as you say "Put him outside a centre with a timed pass". So the centre was not at fault as Riley scored all those tries.
Out of interest who was the centre that didn't have the timed pass.

Not at all, I'm simply pointing out all things are relative. We were doing more attacking across the whole team.

Not mythology on my part. He scored exceptional tries at the start of his career (far more than the fondly remembered Henare). I just feel that had he been given support at that point he COULD have gone on to bigger and better things. Not guaranteed, simply a "what if"...like many things in sport.

Considering the love-in with Regan Grace by the RL media, you wonder should Penny have received the same encouragement he would have developed better. Imagine if he broke through at Wigan, Saints or Leeds instead of a Paul Cullen coached mid-table team.

Penny arguably had twice the skill of Grace (who is not half a bad player) at the same age but we just love to make someone the scapegoat (even though that 2007/2008 team was awful defensively across the park). I’ve watched Grace make more howlers than he has made/scored tries but I bet we won’t see the same vitriol.

Don't think that's anything to do with media, the media liked Penny so much they named him in the SL dream team.

Grace is rightfully getting some plaudits (as did Penny at the same stage). It will be interesting to see how Grace develops in seasons 2 and 3 as that was where Penny started to decline, whether that was because of his ability or support.

We don’t only need some speedsters out wide, we need some pace in the pack.

All of our props are slow. You never see any of them receive the ball from a quick PTB and sprint into a disorganised defence, causing problems. They all just seem to be joggers who jog into tackles, other than Hill, who does have good footwork and does make extra yards in the hit-up as a result but never hits the line at good pace.

If Penny had come through in those teams the expectations would have been even higher. Remember at Leeds Leroy Rivett and Marcus St Hilaire were fast and highly rated when they first came through, but when they proved to be unreliable they were moved on.

If Penny had come through at Leeds, it would have been at the same time as Ryan Hall, and they had Scott Donald on the other wing. If Penny had some bad games, he would have found it harder to get back in their side than he did to get past Hicks and Riley.

I think we need to get the quality of our wingers in perspective. Greg Eden scored 38 tries this season.
How many would Lineham, Russell and Penny have scored playing on the left wing at Castleford?
How many would Eden have scored for Wire this season? I've no idea of course but I'd guess our lads would have bagged a few.

Don't know what the mythology around Penny is. .....
All I know is he was the most exciting winger ive seen at the club.

Also at no other time in the near forty years of watching wire have saints fans aimed a chant at other wire wingers.......they never sang theres only one mark forster or one Manoa Thompson when they put 80 nil on us. ...

They did it because penny scored a couple of worldys against them and then knocked on on his own try line gifting them a score.... so they let him have it ...he then left Meli for dead in a league game and then when tries were scored on his wing they continued the one Kevin penny chant.


You don't sing at bog standard rubbish players......
Or for that matter even players you think are better. ....I can't imagine " there's only one Marcus St hilaire" caught on.

Anyway he's gone. ...We should move on... Russell and Lineham will be our wingers next season. ...surely we should be excited that two defensively excellent and pacey wingers are on our wings. ?

Penny was certainly fast and scored some electric tries, but when he fell out of favour he was sent out to first Widnes, and then London. Presumably for a bit of breathing space. Several clubs could have come in for him at that point, and eventually Wakefield took him for a season in 2011. After that though he drifted down a division to lowly Swinton for two years. If we are going to argue that he was a top class winger and that we missed out, then you would have to ask why other SL clubs also spurned the opportunity during those 3-4 years when he was available.

Back to our wingers for 2018 and I would certainly hope that we will not have Russell on the wing. With an improved pack and the comment when Sims departed that "we were going to go in a different direction", I would hope we are finally going to see the pack responsible for getting us back up field rather than, Russels' scooting. (Nothing wrong with a good scoot now and again btw, just so long as it's not our prime weapon). If that is the case, Russel would be redundant as far as I am concerned. I don't know how fast Sitaleki Akauola is, but perhaps he could play for us on the wing ? He certainly looked impressive taking a try on his video clip and I would imagine his defending will be typically Tongan, with his opposite number getting thrown into the front row of the stands rather than simply tackled around the legs. Either way, we desperately need a quality winger from somewhere.

Defensively excellent? Is that tongue in cheek?

With each new addition I convince myself further, what were we thinkin about keeping TS so long?
I'm even beginning to think that following 2011 peak of much of Cullen's team that he is simply another Millward.

It's like TS had no idea of menace, of balance, of player worth, team success over play development and being in touch with fans.

I have a sence of feeling that 2018 could show us that TS was one of the worst coaches we have ever had... I selfishly hope so!

Tony Smith is/was a great coach, no doubting that. He took a collection of quality individuals and turned them into a trophy-winning team.

The problem is, like almost every coach's era, it has to come to an end. Things became stale, the recruitment wasn't necessarily that great, and the mental monkey of not being able to make that last hurdle of the GF would be hanging over us. Things had to change and they have. Smith brought us one of the greatest Warrington eras, but that doesn't mean he could continue to do so...

Price may or may not achieve a trophy win with Warrington but it doesn't change the fact we needed a fresh start.

That's for Sally to decide...