no i will still be in australia... which is where i am...


oh... you mean hickey!

I knew you would get there in the end Vasty



In relation to Hickey, highly unlikely that any other club will take him, so with him having another year deal it may appear you are stuck with him.

In my opinion though his future success lay in his own hands. If he has any backbone and commitment to getting his career back on track he will remain in Wakefield for the full off season and get himself in a basic condition to attempt a full pre season at a professional club.

When the rest of the players get a break, without question he should look to be getting aerobically fit and dropping the weight, something that is very difficult to do in season at any rate due to the demands of other training. He needs to turn up for the official preseason training a good 2 stone down on where he is and then rebuild his strength and power from this point as these will certainly been negatively effected with any kind of crash weight loss required.

IF he wants to be I think he can be an asset to the club moving forward, but he needs to make it happen. Nobody can do the hard often lonely dull work of losing the weight and increasing aerobic capacity for him.

That's my view - there's no denying that he arrived in dreadful shape but equally, there's also no denying that he's played the game at the top level and had a pretty fearsome reputation when he did. Given that, there's absolutely no reason that he can't rebuild his fitness and become one of SL's most effective forwards.

It does come down to desire and motivation though - if he doesn't summon up enough of either in the off-season, I'd like to see the club act decisively to terminate his contract.

He needs a "Rocky Montage" of an off-season.

He CAN do it, IMO it comes down to if WANTS to do it. We'll see.

I don't however participate in the view that he's a liability to the club. In my view we have a win-win situation.
If he does get back to his past levels of fitness and form we have one hell of a forward, if he doesn't well he won't get in the team with the standard of players/staff we are signing. He was also signed at a time when we didn't have 2 quids to rub together.

The future of Mr Hickey is in his own hands.

The fact that he let himself get in that shape knowing he had a contract says a lot about his attitude, I think he is a liability to himself.
As I posted earlier the ball is most definitely in his court, and if he does not achieve what is expected, as Bren posted, I would hope the club take the required action.

Indeed - I expect to see him beating up a side of beef, dragging a log round Pugney's and running up the Cathedral steps in the snow, with adoring children trailing behind him.

If he doesnt sort himself out, he wont be playing much as there is no way we can carry 2 x 20/30mins players in the 17 next year in him and Lauititi.
1 is a luxury, 2 is just daft.

if he doesn't shape up, you may well still see him on the cathedral steps....

you forgot chasing chickens and not the KFC variety.

I omitted the chicken bit, since I knew some lag would make the fast food link!

Hickey has said on his twitter in response to someone asking him if he was going back to Oz at xmas that he wasn't as having a big "off season" over here.

Sounds promising lets hope he puts the graft in and we see the real Hickey next season