Quote: BrianBradyHandOff "Didn't mike Cooper have a serious illness when very young and at the start of his career ?'" https://www.nrl.com/news/2016/06/15/bro ... ed-cooper/

Quote: BrianBradyHandOff "Didn't mike Cooper have a serious illness when very young and at the start of his career ?'" https://www.nrl.com/news/2016/06/15/bro ... ed-cooper/

Wouldn't please me to lose Currie and gain McMeeken. Currie to Saints would be hard to bear and Cas fans have stated McMeeken has been pretty average for a while.

Wrong thread mare - apologies. I love Cooper though.

Unplayable is right, I always remember his purple patch ending against Wigan but he had done enough in the first 19 minutes to make sure we won the match anyway, I honestly think it would have been a cricket score had he stayed on. For a time it was worth the admission fee at the HJ just to watch sandow, a pleasure to watch. We annihilated cas at home and he was just incredible, possibly the most enjoyable live game in my time watching wire.

Sandow, for that short window, looked as good as any player I’ve seen at Warrington. He could make breaks, create space, kick 40/20’s, chip and chase himself and it felt that we could score from anywhere.

That left hand side of him, Currie and Atkins just looked big, strong and fast. They could have scored 100 tries between them if he could have stayed on the pitch.

Who knows, the break could have really done Widdop and Austin good and we could have a healthy and dynamic combo to entertain this year.

Players like Sandow really frustrate me, all that talent but no application, a long time retired to be thinking what might have been...assuming he ever has that degree of insight.

If you could choose one of these on peak form, who would you take:

Sandow from early 2016
Austin from early 2019
Appo from late 2003
Langer from 2000

Unfortunately you could classify him in the 'flawed genius' category.
It's often the case with those type of people - in al walks of life, not just sport.


Sally,
That's a really difficult question.
I didn't see Langer too much at that time so can't compare, but of the other 3 I'd say Sandow.

Appo was certainly on fire in the last half of the last year at Wilderspool and I'd have no problem with others who think he was better - the team he had around him was nowhere near the quality of that that Sandown had around him to be fair.

Imagine Langer playing behind some of the packs we have had in the last 10 years?

It would certainly be more fruitful than the packs had to play behind during his spell with us.

Langer is what Sandow may have been if he had the right attitude. They were similar players in terms of both having a huge box of tricks in their game that could break open even a well organised defence: chip kicks, grubber kicks, dummies and darts. Our current team makes hard work out of wins. We'll be camped out on the other team's line working the ball from side to side hoping for some inspiration. Having either of those players would make a huge difference, because the team didn't even have to be particularly good (see the Langer era) to be competitive in games, because Langer kept finding ways to score points.

Langer did seem to be part of a cliquey ethos at the club which I didn't like - he came over with his Aussie mates and because he had links with DVDV. When DVDV left, Langer suddenly retired due to injury which magically healed when he got back to Aus so he could play for Brisbane and Queensland with Andrew Gee the next season. So I was never conned that Langer bled primrose and blue. BUT he did have a tough mentality that he'd been brought up on with Wayne Bennett and the Broncos all those years, that meant he had it together on the pitch, even if he'd been out socialising with his mates. He wasn't prone to distractions off the pitch making him lose fitness and focus on the pitch, which happened to Sandow (and Appo). You knew Langer was going to turn up ready to perform, and he was also single-minded enough not to let what was going on around him (poor play from his teammates) affect his own performance, whereas Tawera Nikau did. He liked playing the top teams too and he carved up Bradford, Wigan and Leeds.

Sandow had a history of being unreliable in Australia too, but you could see his quality as he had 2 or 3 unplayable seasons there - even in the NRL where teams have super structured defences, Sandow was breaking them down. The difference with Langer was he did that for about 15 years.

My ranking of those four would be:
Langer 2000
Sandow 2016
Austin 2019
Appo 2003

Sandow ahead of Austin on peak form because he had more variety to his game than Austin who is mainly a runner. But, in terms of attitude, Austin is streets ahead. Austin is the only one out of those who really looked like he wanted to play for Wire and had passion for the primrose and blue. Players like that are generally a better bet for delivering over a longer time frame (see Greg Mackey, Nat Wood).

Appo is bottom of the list for me. Even in his peak, when Briers got injured and he went to stand-off, I think his performances were exaggerated. Unlike Langer, you didn't really see him against the top teams. Appo was a bully of weaker teams who couldn't handle him when he ran the ball. He didn't have nearly the range of kicks that Langer and Sandow had, and I think Austin's footwork was better too, Appo was just quicker over a long distance. Against weak sides Appo kept finding opportunities to run and because he kicked goals too, he amassed high points totals.

Also Appo post-2003 gives a warning of what might have happened if Sandow had returned for the 2017 season. It was obvious his head wasn't in it, so he would have probably Appo'd out the rest of his contract and dragged down the dressing room.

I'm not a huge follower of the Aussie game, but would I be right in saying that if you asked an Aussie fan to rank those 4 players, you would be laughed out of town for even mentioning Appo/Austin/Sandow in the same breath as Langer?

Langer is an all time great, the others aren't, but the question was about ranking how they played at a particular point in time.

Austin, Appo and Sandow all had spells when they did similar things in the NRL to what they did in their peak days of Wire: Austin in his first season at Canberra, Appo in Adelaide and Sandow in his first season at Souths and at a couple of points with Parra. Langer obviously played at that level for a long time.

Another random fact about Sandow, he played in the halves for Australia schoolboys on their 2006 tour of the UK, alongside Mitchell Pearce. Israel Folau played in that team too. They beat an England Academy team which included Chris Riley, Kevin Penny, Ben Harrison, Anthony Rourke and Danny Colquitt.

It’s mad to think that Chris Sandow is currently the same age as Gareth Widdop. At 31, Sandow would still be threat in any side just shame he hasn’t been able to sustain his fitness and sort out his attitude / off field issues.

He is.