Another cracking piece of business by the club. https://wiganwarriors.com/blog/2024/12/ ... year-deal/

Another cracking piece of business by the club. https://wiganwarriors.com/blog/2024/12/ ... year-deal/

22 years old - going to be a great player.

Fantastic news. The best hooker in Superleague.

He’s an exceptionally good player and it wouldn’t surprise me if he got the captaincy when Farrell retires. I’ve always suspected that eventually he would end up playing 13 however, Ellis has proven to be an excellent 13 and he will take some shifting from that role particularly over the next couple of years.
Yet another good piece of business by the club.

What is he good at?

He's done well to be first choice hooker at his age but I don't get comments like this.

For example Leeming scored as many tries last year as O'Neill has in his entire career, can drop into the halves during play and puts on really good kick pressure. I'm not sure what O'Neill is particularly good at.

Watch the trophies he wins. He sets the standards, his defence is exceptional and he will only get better.

All the little things, with the ball he’s quite simple. He gives the ball to our play makers fast. He is a physical ball carrier when he does run.

In defensive he is ferocious, most hookers are target for ball carriers but not Brad. He leads our line speed, leads our kick chase, puts pressure on kickers, is immense in the ruck, great in the wrestle, he has a great engine.

Kind of player his teams mates love.

Leeming does flashy stuff being fast but sometimes frustrates the halves by going off on his own adventures at times (especially on the last tackle), also not the best defender (but improved later in the year).


Brad is the glue of our team. He’s miles ahead of where Micky Mac was at age 22.

Lucky to have him.

Rather than me answering that, ask yourself why a coach of Matt Peet's obvious ability has him as first choice hooker? Leeming is good and makes for an excellent rotation with O'Neil but, if he was better as you claim, he'd have the 9 jersey.

I was going to post about the comparison with MM.

I think McIlorum was a great player for us and, imo, Brad is in a similar mould but I agree with you that he is ahead of where MM was at his age.

O'Neill seems to be a combination of MM and Terry Newton

He’s a good tackler and that’s about it. His distribution is laboured and inaccurate and is too slow in attack. The guy you quoted is a well known troll so ignore him

yeah, what the hell would Peet, the club and the coaching team know anyhow.......

If anyone wants a lesson on how good he is, go and watch the Penrith game again. He went toe to toe with Leota, Fisher-Harris, Kenny and Yeo in that middle and was absolutely unbelievable. I think there's a misconception that he doesn't have a running game but there is a difference between somebody with no running game and somebody playing to a gameplan and being selfless by getting quick ball to the teams biggest attacking threats. When O'Neill runs the ball, his average gain per carry is very good (8.11m) and comfortably above guys like Leeming (6.54) and Litten (7.1m) and similar to guys like Danny Walker (8.22) and Andy Ackers (8.54). All of those are more renowned as being hookers with a running threat. Only guys like Clark and Ipappe sit above 9 metres per carry but that is the main part of their game, unlike Brad O'Neill.

I'm not daft enough to question his ability, but this one did raise an eyebrow given the injury he is still out with for another 4 months. Its a big contract to give when there must still be an element of doubt about his return

If you are judging a player by how many tries they score….with all due respect you don’t really have a clue about rugby.

...

Appreciate the actual response that some people seem incapable of.

I'm suspicious how good a lot of people would think he is if we didn't have French and Field scoring and creating tries for fun.

We had some of that criticism of Harry Smith for a bit.

Also Sam Powell was good at these effort areas, maybe not as good, but I believe he got a lot of stick and people called for more attacking hookers.

…but we do have Field and French, so I’m not sure what the point it.

Each player brings their own individual parts to a team effort.

If you don’t see what he brings to the team and what he does to allow Field and French to do what they do then again, I’m guessing you don’t fully appreciate the game fully.

More importantly for O’Neil, we have Smith who does the bulk of the organising which allows O’Neil to get us into the right areas of the pitch to set up the plays and provide a high level damaging effort role in the middle both sides of the ball, which whilst Powell has in style in reality they are not in the same league as O’Neils ability to do this.

I’d actually say Field and French are lucky to have him doing what he does in the middle creating fatigue and slowing down the slide defence which creates space on the edges for the likes of them and others in the team to exploit.

Like I said earlier it’s not all about who puts the ball down over the goal line, just like Leeming who generally comes on once O’Neil has softened up the middles.

Yeah it does seem like odd timing. I suspect it's more of a change to his salary, salary structure and bonuses across future years and they just whacked on an extra 2 years.

The team has such a good balance, with each player bring their strengths to the party and covering other players weaknesses and vice versa and that spreads throughout the whole team. Field and French are as lucky to have somebody like Harry Smith, as he is lucky to have them.

I do think O'Neill is a bit different. The point still stands that he's lucky to have those strike players and a game managing scrum half like Harry Smith and they're all lucky to have him but unlike somebody like Smith, I do think O'Neill has an ability to do more with the ball 'if' he was asked to do so. He can run a ball and cause loads of problems but I sense him doing a Clark and taking a couple of scoots a set isn't part of the the gameplan and he's humble enough to play his role and hand over the ball to the attacking weapons we have. That leaves him fresh to do his thing, which has he showed in the WCC game, is to be the leader of all the effort areas and to really take it to the opposition in defence. It's easy to forget how young the lad is as well. To be doing what he's doing, playing in the middle of the field, at the age of 22 is exceptional and he'll continue to improve. I wouldn't swap him for any other hooker in Superleague.

I wouldnt swap for any other hooker in Superleague as he is the best in Superleague wthout a doubt.

Again I appreciate this kind of sensible response. I asked the question because I wanted to be clear about what people thought his strengths were, not because i didn't think he had any.

And this is basically what I said, he's impressive for his age. I probably wouldn't swap him for anyone else especially with him being club trained. And i'm sure he will continue to improve.

I just think some of the praise sounds OTT. We had an incredible run to the grand final with Forber and Leeming. Did we miss O'Neill?

Yes you seem to struggle with reading comprehension.

I literally just asked a question, you seem to have taken the hump.

French and field being lucky to have O'Neill is hilarious. How unlucky that we had them in the grand final and o'neil out. Who knows what the score would have been the other way around.

The point I made about tries was just pointing out what Leemings relative strengths were, it was one of three things i listed as a prompt for people to respond with what O'Neill was good at.

Do you think it's coincidental that Cunningham is considered one of the top 2 hookers in the history of super league and he's also the top scoring forward by a country mile? I agree you shouldn't judge solely on try scoring but it is kinda relevent. Terry Newton was good, he scored quite a lot of tries for a hooker. Coincidence?

No because he plays the game when it is at its most intense through the softening up period.

If you look at tries scored on the edges defence coaches generally look where the issue is in the middle that created the space as invariably the space comes from a middle player switching off and not pushing on the inside of the slide enough, which holds up the next man and the next man which creates space on an edge.

O’Neil causes fatigue along with his other middle forwards which creates space on the edges which you simply wouldn’t get with other hookers including Leeming.

If you find it hilarious the notion that players are lucky to have O’Neil in the side again I think your understanding is lacking or seems to be from what you post.

David Hodgson scored plenty of tries for Wigan, is he one of the best wingers we have ever had?

Apologies if you don’t like your perception of the game challenging.

Always tough to figure out how much you've missed a player when you're winning. Once the side raises and gets in to that big game mode, you can cover some absences of important players. Where I do think we missed O'Neill was in the games from his injury up until we managed to find focus and form. He is a leader in terms of intensity and physicality and it's not really the big games when you miss a guy like that, it's the games where everyone is a bit flat and you need somebody to lift people around them.

O'Neill is a terrific player.
He is ideally suited to starting a game and a front row of Havard, Brad and Thompson is staggeringly good. Hopefully Brad will get back to full fitness and help move the pack forward and improve on what was an exceptional last season.
Getting him to sign such a long term contract is a massive boost for the club and us supporters.