Eh? I agree it was very nice to be going to a playoff for the first time. But comparable to a back to back Cup win after thrashing Leeds? No chance.

Dean Gaskell made a hell of a lot of metres. Sadly for him and us, they were nearly all sideways.

From what I recall thinking at the time.

Gaskell-might as well have carried the linesmans flag. Never came off the touchline unless he already had the ball, if a break happened and moved infield, he would continue to support from 40 yards away on the wing. No instinct.
Noone-Slow in mind and body and physically weak-always outmuscled. I never saw the potential as I only ever saw him in the first team and he never once stood out to me.
Sibbit-Average and a bit lazy.
Gary Hulse- Tried harder than anyone and cant knock him for effort. How he ever got a debut though is beyond me. He couldnt seem to lauch a pass further than 5 metres and it took an age to run the same distance. Think the club were desperate to prove Squadbuilder wasnt a waste of money
Mark Gleeson-I actually liked him. Many a time he came off the bench and turned the game, punched well above his weight but unfortunately also alledgedly partied in a similar fashion.

Eh?

This thread has convinced me that Sally Cinnamon has an imposter posting under his name. 99.9% of the time you get an articulate and well thought out post from SC and occasionally the imposter turns up on threads like this claiming noone was as good as anderson. They also appeared on the ashes thread saying that Peter Such was a good spin bowler.

Pretty much spot on, although far too tough on Noone (imo not a bad player, but as I've said earlier, never kicked on)
Gaskell was dross at best. Just wasn't good enough at SL level
Gleeson was just an enigma. One game, his runs from dummy half were devastating, and could help turn a game, then for the next few games, he'd wander round with his thumb up his 'arris. Another ex player, who, with a bit more application, would have made it.
Hulse was just a typical player of that era, not THAT bad, but nowhere near the standard of what we've got now.

THANK GOD WE'VE MOVED ON.

I know certain posters have got issues with certain players, but, we've got a damn good squad of 25, the envy of the majority of SL. No REAL weak links in our squad, but, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, the likes of Mitchell, Blythe, Cooper etc MUST kick on this season, to prevent them going down the same career path as Noone

These kind of threads make you realise how the populist view that no young players got a chance under the old regime at Warrington, was a load of rubbish.

Plenty of Academy lads got chance after chance after chance after chance after chance in the first team.

I personally would rather have had a team of fringe reserve grade NRL players like Nat Wood, Burns and Domic, who would at least play with pride in the shirt, than have these 'local lads' who are actually not up to it.

Fair comment Sal, we had a glut of them around the 2000 and 2001 season, and from memory, not many (if any) "kicked on", despite having mentors like Langer/Gee/Nikau/Walters as well as established Super League standard players, to guide them through. Wether this is down to poor coaching/a poor regard of our youth system at the time, or just a total lack of application by the youngsters themselves.

Add to the ones already mentioned, Jamie Stenhouse, Will Cowell....I'm sure there are others if anyone wants to add to the list.
Also, around a year or so later (iirc), there was Pickersgill.

Where do we lay the blame for these player's failures. It just seems to me we had a lot of youth come through in the space of 4 or 5 years, and now, they're all playing low grade rugby. SHAME.

club shop.

In 03, expectations of winning a game at all were few and far between, where as today, going into a final against anyone I'm expecting a win. We've a tremendous squad at our disposal. And I do appreciate theres no comparison in terms of magnitude, Seb, but I personally was over the moon. It felt like winning a cup considering how barren our recent times had been ...

Therefore my elation in each case was relative to our aims and likely success's in each period in question. But I was similarly happy on both occasions....

It all comes down to ability really. On the one hand you get players like Jamie Durbin that people say "if only he'd applied himself..." but then Hulse, Gaskell etc you couldn't question their attitudes.

I think there is a level of ability that they have to have and then a certain toughness to be able to survive the SL environment which is where a lot of them fall away, compare Chris Riley to Kevin Penny for example, I don't reckon Riley looked as good a player as Penny but he survived the examination of SL whereas Penny didn't. Paul Wood again I don't think when he was coming through in 2000, people especially raved about him although he'd got a lot of tries for the academy, there were other young players who were hyped more at the time. But once Wood was in SL even as a young player he looked like he suited SL. Out of the recent crop I think you can say the same about Harrison.

not wanting to be pedantic but you're wrong.
smith took over during our relegation season of 2001 when we were only relegated on the next to last day despite only winning 2 and drawing 1 of our previous 18 games ( incidentally our biggest win was 52-10 against warrington!)
the next season in 2002 in the NFP we were unbeaten in the league winning 27 and drawing 1 of our 28 games as well as winning the grand final and the buddies cup in which we were unbeaten too,in fact our only defeat that year came in the challenge cup at doncaster.
in 2003 despite predictions for us to struggle again,smith steered us to superb victories over the then champions st helens,leeds,wigan and hull in total winning 11 out of 28 games which was more than our previous 4 seasons combined!
it was actually because of his achievements at the giants that he got the leeds job, just thought i'd correct you

good luck for the new season.

The team and everything about the club still needs to progress.Its no good having the mentality, we've won a couple of cups.That will do. Am sure after having a small taste of success,the players will strive to achieve greater success. In the coming seasons.And the club on a whole will want to keep improving in aspects of been,one of the top clubs in SL. Weather that can be done remains to be seen.

Watched our 3 lads for Leigh whenever they were on box last year. Mitchell impresses me, definitely has the desire to make it just wish he was a bit bigger. I dont see Matty Blythe as a superleague player and will be amazed if he makes it. Liked the look of McCarthy when he came in at end of season before last, but looked to have gone backwards from what I saw at Leigh last year, dont know whether it was his hairstyle doing it but appeared to have lost power/weight.
Cant make my mind up about Coops, definitely looks a miles better prospect than Pickersgill or Stevens ever did.

I remember watching Noone during the Bradford game at home in 2003 ( I think it was the one where Gaskell kept a 40/20 in play in the last minute, slipped and Naylor scored) and thinking that he wouldn't get any better.