Gleeson needs to up his game next year just like Fielden, his defence has been important for us but he also needs to offer more going forward.

Players on big money have to be more than one trick ponies.

With regards to Fielden and the stats, firstly i am very suspicious of the engange stats some of them simply do not make sense and have been odd throughout the year, secondly they do not take into account dominant tackles where a player dominates the attacker. Fielden gets his body in the way but rarely dominates the tackle slowing the defender down.

Leon Pryce will often take the ball up on the second or third tackle and find his front as soon as he meets the defensive line, the defender gets credited with a tackle but Pryce has cleverly generated a quick play the ball and put his team on the front foot, so although the defender gets a tick newxt to his name the attacker has won the battle at the ruck.

Fielden at the very least needs to dominate attackers not just bring them down and be happy with a tick next to his name, and neither should we the fans.

Big money players have to perform to somewhere near there salary cap value as yet in my speculative opinion neither Gleeson or Fielden has although Gleeson is much closer than Fielden has been thus far.

My exact views to.

To me the higher you salary the more you should contribute towards the team, big money players are paid higher salaries and therefore should in return offer far more than your regular run of the mill player. As yet Fielden isn't fulfilling his reputation or justifying his salary, but like everyone I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt next year.

Gleeson has undoubtedly sured up are defense down his side but like everyone else I still feel he has a lot more to show us in offence to justify his rather large wage.

Eyes on both and daggers at the ready.

He was very lazy in defence, although IMO he more than made up for it in attack. The fact we had 3 very defensive back rowers alongside him helped a lot

Exactly.

You can carry a player like Hock with ease when playing alongside guys like Hansen, Bailey, Lockers and Fielden.

It becomes a problem when he has to defend alongside guys like Feka, Tim Smith and at times Joel Tomkins(who just seems to sleep in defence now and again).

Aye spot on

But now we have no Tim Smith, a fitter Feka so he's probably not going to be a liability in defence.

However I do agree about Joel. Not only does he go asleep, he gets dominated in tackles as well. Something he needs to work on if he wants to be in the 17 for me

On last years performances I personally do not think he would have been missed as much as Coley or Feka.

He is playing the role of the supporting which is not good enough, and sadly we cannot in the age of the cap, remove performance from wages.

The teams that succeed get value for money from there players Fielden has thus far not offered this.

Next year is really last chance saloon for his career, under a new coach and new regime at his age if he does not significantly improve i seriously think he will struggle to attract much attention from any other clubs for 2011 or beyond.

I think one thing he did offer last year was a sufficient defensive workload to enable us to have a luxury like Feka in the forwards.

As for next year on the [iright[/i contract i'd sign him up now - I however think BN moving on will be the best thing that's happened to Fielden, as I think BN had totally no idea how to get Stu firing again. I think if anybody can do it it's SW, MM and Bitcon - you're right if he has a poor season then he's had it career wise, I'm just pretty optimistic that he'll have a good one.

He's been given the No. 8 shirt so MM must see something in him.

Big season required from SF......

I noticed this, he had no problem dumping Feka/Bailey/Goulding and rewarding Sam/Phelps/Coley. So Stuart must be showing something to warrant his squad number.

Possibly without the lens of emotion and his contract value, Stu's not quite the poor footballer he's made out to be?

It has to though when he's on a contract already and there's bugger all you can do about it for a few years. As a coach you've got to pick your most effective team, it doesn't matter if a player isn't 'living up to his contract value' if he's the best option you have for the spot then you pick him regardless. All you can do is wait for the contract to be up, and then renegotiate or not renew it. Anything else in the meantime is either cutting your nose off to spite your face, or just causing yourself angst over a situation that you can't change About the only situation I can think of to drop a player who's still the best for his spot is for disciplinary reasons.

Come on AJ, 'happy clap' you just might find you like it It's a happier more peaceful world as a fan if you do Maybe we need a theme tune we can happily clap along to together