Fielden a Giant

Quote: DaveO "I will never forget his arrival in 2006. I was amazed he came to what appeared a sinking ship and his presence lifted the crowd on his début to levels not often seen at the DW. It was fantastic.'"

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.