Sinking ship or not it was still Wigan and they had still just recruited the coach that had won three SL titles in the past five seasons. Even if Fielden and Noble didn't work out as well as expected sometimes you need to make statements that you aren't going to accept your fate and slowly wither away and die. It was a similar story with us and Gleeson, Johns etc, even though they didn't win trophies, we were signalling our intent.

Wigan, through disastrous recruiting, were a complete basketcase at the time and had some momentum not been restored by big statements like Fielden who knows what would have happened to Wigan.

I have always liked Fielden, its a shame how the second half of his career he has just been a bog standard SL prop when he was one of the elite players of the game in his early days. I remember a warning in Mal Reilly's book though (written in about 2000) where he said he saw how a young Stuart Fielden and Martin Lang were playing the game and wondered how long their careers would last given the way they played and the punishment they took. Martin Lang retired in his mid 20s and Stuart Fielden lost his edge. But RL fans shouldn't forget how good these players were, Fielden at his peak was not far off world's best prop.

Stu was an animal in his mid 20's and was IMO better than any British prop since.

He had it all with pace, aggression, excellent engine and was not afraid to mix it when it was on.

Every time he was tackled, he would get up and cock his fist

The thing is, even though it was possibly just him trying to gain a psychological advantage over the opposition, generally it worked (with two notable exceptions )

The beating he gave Jason Smith (who was no shrinking violet) was cruel and he got the better against Barrie Mac on a couple of occasions.

Half the reason that the Bulls v Leeds games were so good in the early to mid 2000's where because of these two nutters trying to kill each other.

There is also a picture knocking around somewhere of GB v Aus during a scrap (think it would have been around 2004) and the ockers are literally receiving blows across the whole pic from the like Fielden, Macdermot, Peacock, Morely etc.

Those where the days. Granted the still scored more points than them, but at least we would knock them around for 80 first

The Fielden saga has been a joke start to finish, he is lucky to land a two year deal at the Giants, from our perspective they have wasted a lot of time and resources on him.

We won a Grand Final with Martin Gleeson.

It's a shame Fielden had to go to Hudderfield. He deserves better than than to go to a club where RL players go to die.