Quote: Phuzzy "Dave, the point is you refuse to subscribe to this viewpoint despite there being numerous examples of this being the case. For some reason you expect all players to be the same and point to players who didn't need time to settle in as a reason why no-one should. That's just plain ridiculous.
King, Roberts, Richards, Smith, Lam (I could go on of course) are all examples of players who were much better in their second season than their first. Roberts, himself, gave a good interview as to why he didn't perform as well as he should have last year and the upheaval of coming half way round the world and not properly settling until his family arrived featured very strongly.'"
And there far more examples of players who are up to speed form day one and that is the
THE most pertinent fact in this debate because that is how it should be.
God knows where this notion came from that it was acceptable to wait a season for an experienced overseas player to settle in came from.
In any case you are being disingenuous bringing up names like Smith because he carried an injury for virtually the whole of his first season here so he had an excuse and Richards was played out of position by a poor coach and as soon as he went to the wing under Nobby he was a different player. A change of coach that did Richards good looks to me have done the same to Roberts.
As to Roberts his family arrived here long before the end of the season but he didn't gain an extra yard of pace when they did. It's as plain as day he looks a completely different player and IMO it's little to do with settling into living here but down to good conditioning in the off season, good tactics and a proper game plan now IMO. If that has nothing to do with it then clearly our new coach doesn't have a great deal of influence on the squad which is plainly not the case across all the players not just Roberts.
Joel Tomkins looks a much improved player as well. I suppose he's been homesick for Warrington or wherever he was born these past few seasons
Dave
