Actually he did have issues with his defence last season but a lot of them were covered by having Lineham outside him. And it was less of an issue when he was scoring tries for fun - again, in partnership with Lineham.

He doesn't need to try and get enormously bigger, just a few more kilos and some upper body strength improvement should do it. Pearson referred to this in his interview so it's been worked on for a while now.

Just a shame it wasnt Crooks on the end of that intercept on Thursday night instead of Whiting.

but was young player of the year in.............................

Doesn't matter how often you train, you don't eat enough, simple as that.

There's absolutely no reason why you should be stuck on 12 stone if your diet and training are right, most people throw some weights around and expect to get bigger, however you don't grow in the gym, you grow when you recover and if the nutrition isn't there your efforts in the gym are utterly pointless.

I eat what I need to eat, far too many people eat WAY more than they need.

I still think he was treated harshly at the beginning of the season to be honest. In and out of the side and seemingly a scapegoat. It wasn't just Crooks but Arundel too and then on the other side of the field we had Yeamo who seemingly could do no wrong no matter how bad he played (just for the record I think he's been in great form recently). From the outside looking in something didn't seem right there. But maybe the problem was more about how the club handled the fans and media, not Crooks himself. If the issue with Crooks was always a "niggling groin problem", confidence and the need to bulk him up then maybe the club should have said so all along instead of just dropping him after a game with no explanation.

Interesting to note that all our tries conceded last Thursday night were all on the side of the field where Crooks would have played so I'd say that it's always been a collective issue there rather than an individual issue.

I agree that Crooks could do with bulking up and that it should help with the defensive aspect of his game. Attacking wise he's got ability in spades. Get his defensive work improved and he's going to be unstoppable. Should that not be possible though (as some have said with certain people it's just not possible to bulk up) I still think he's got a great future ahead of him.

More interested in his GF than getting down the gym and having a RL career.

His GF may well be with him for life...

family first, always.

Quite.... if thats the case, i wouldnt even offer him a contract renewal ,
also if offered a contract, What message does that send out to the whole squad??

If his GF is to be with him for life, why potentially ruin a 15 year career?

If he's not got his head in the right place then I agree, we've all had that mate that gets a bird and disappears off the planet for a while.

I dont profess to know the answer or the issues for that matter. What I do know is some on here were of the opinion he had been treated poorly. If he was in an d out of the team at the coaches call, then its probably because he was not doing the job being asked of him. It would surely be poor team management to allow a play carte blanch, the others would soon join in and then you really do have carnage.

Not saying you're wrong but I think there were definitely questions been asked about our squad selection at the time and who was getting dropped/not picked and who was getting picked. I recall that when Miller finally got the nod that Radford indicated it was more because the fans had been asking for him rather than because Radford wanted to pick him!