I doubt anyone accused him of not being good enough with a serious head on. The annoyance at him was precisely because we could see he was, and is, good.

He was part of our double winning team when he came off the bench in both finals, and is an antidote to Wigan fans who claim that Shaun Wane has never found and improved any props. He was nothing when he came from Hull KR.

He had a strange year at Salford when he was overweight and that probably caused folk to question his attitude. But he has certainly proved his worth at Hull and along with Watts and Houghton forms the best front row in the comp.

Tbf to him I think he won Salford's player of the year, overweight or not.

As you guys have said, the number of carries from your front row must be a tactical thing. I can't imagine imagine Wane standing for it if it wasn't what he wanted.

Yes of course, that's we we signed him.

Wane didn't "find" him, HKR did. We signed a good player who went straight into the 1st team. Along with Bateman he is a rarity. A very good player signed by Wigan in recent years.

To be fair I think he came to us a good player but improved a lot before moving on.

All NRL teams do, but not at the expense of props doing their fair share too. Plus many NRL outside backs are bigger than those in SL.

moto - I'd say you've hit the nail on the head there - tactics need to vary depending on players sometimes. If you have big strong backs who like running the ball up, then by all means use them to do that. If you've got more whippet-like players then you need the forwards to get back and do it. Billy Slater can and does run the ball back really well, but when he does I bet Bellamy's heart is in is mouth because he gets absolutely smashed sometimes. His instructions to the wingers (and everyone else) will be to avoid Slater having to run the ball back if at all possible.

Fair assessment.

He had already played fir England when we signed him so the potential and ability was obvious.

Great up until his last season where he was a bit hit and miss, looked Simon par at Salford but now settled back at "home" he has started to improve again and looks like realising his full potential at Hull.

I was about to say the same thing. Have you seen the size of Melbourne's back line? I wouldn't be surprised if they're also fitter too.

How do you explain the odd good game he has had though (Saints away for example)? I understand him not taking many drives up if that is the strategy, but surely the few he does take should still be strong? I doubt Wane tells him to give up so many surrender tackles. I hope I'm wrong but he just doesn't look that bothered to me most of the time, either that or he is knackered from playing so many games/maybe training too hard. We have seen on occasion that he still has the talent.

Hasn't FPN played in every game? If so then he has probably suffered a bit because of the injuries to Flower, Clubb and to a lesser extent Bretherton in that he has not been able to be rested. Not having Lockers and Joel Tomkins (two of our bigger forwards) at certain times in the season also hasn't helped.
For whatever reason his second spell seems to be better than his first, I'm thinking in particular of the game at Hull a few weeks back when his drives put us in the position to win the game.

Might be so but so has Walmsley who’s done probably triple the amount of work FPN has. If he’s a strong carrier and can make meters and push defenders back then play him to his strengths ffs. None of this hitting the deck on contact and trying to get a quick PTB garbage we’ve seen this season.

his stats are awful for the games hes played considering hes not missed a game TT and Sutton have made more tackles and more carries than him. Shows how little he contributes