You're very quiet Barry Mac............. you haven't answer the question about what your top Australian Rugby league player has done in comparison to Gareth Thomas's rugby Union record ?

strange for someone with as big a mouth as yours

As a piece of PR it's a masterstroke. No doubts about it. The cameras and two-pence hacks will descend on this story like piranhas - rabies-style. Lots of exposure. Just what the Crusader transplants need.

But actual first-team game time? No. Thomas will go down as one of the best players to put on a Welsh jersey in the last twenty years. Had he made the switch age 22/23 he could well have been as big a splash in SL. But for him to front up and compete at the age of 35 will take a miracle several orders of magnitude above sea-parting.

By all means use him as some kind of PR ambassador for the club. That I can buy. But throwing him in against hardened SL pros who'll no doubt be itching to prove a point is suicide. Where does he play? At FB he's too exposed. Ditto wing where the opposing kicker will smash all SL records for bombs into to the corner. At centre his lack of positional experience will be his undoing (I dread to think what guys like Gidley will do to him). I suppose he's big enough to be thrown into the pack, but at 35 I doubt he'll be able to last fifteen minutes without needing oxygen.

I can't imagine Noble harbours any serious notion about Thomas as a viable squad player. But then, this is the guy who allowed Iafeta Palea'aesina to waddle around with two stone extra on his back (thus halving his fitness and utility) for the best part of three seasons, so who knows ...

Well it even got almost a whole page in the sports section of the Daily Mail yesterday. i can't remember the last time i ever saw anything about SL in the Daily Mail.

It doesn't matter how well he plays, because it's a new club in a new area, and it will generate interest, which can only be good for the club. There's more to running a club than rugby on the field.

I expect he'll be very good though. He is clearly a very good player. The only real difference between the two codes for a winger is that maybe he hasn't been kicked to as much close to the line, but as a union player he'll be used to catching the high kicks, and he looks a big, strong player.

And maybe he hasn't been asked to return a punt a dozen times per eighty minutes. And maybe he hasn't been forced to defend his position ten to fifteen times per match - and then get straight up to defend it again, or act as the short side marker (when was the last time you saw a Union winger have to make up to twenty tackles per game?). And maybe hasn't been asked to go into the rough stuff toward the end of each forty when his forwards need some backup. And maybe he hasn't been carpet-bombed repeatedly because he's the suspect leak.

I mean, do you close your eyes when you watch either sport? Thomas was a great Union player in his day. But the moment he steps into SL proper it's a whole different game. Which is why the likes of Quinnell and Scott Gibbs (who is as good a judge of either code as you'll find) think he's living in la la land.

Gareth Thomas obviously was a fine RU player, but at his age, 'was' is the operative word. Now he thinks he can cut it in RL so he must have a pretty poor view of our game - as must the people who are signing him.

If he only plays 3 or 4 games this season for the Crusaders then he will have done his job. It will be great for publicity for RL in Wales and maybe bring in 1 or 2 good RU players. Its all about giving RL a much higher profile in Wales nothing more.

It'll be nice for him to get a game so that all the pointless "predicitons" (extreme guesses!) can end and he can be judged on what he HAS done and not on what cyclopean "experts" feel he MIGHT do.

There's nothing "extreme" about it. There is a bag full of historical evidence which says Union players find it hard going in league (as well as the reverse). Yes, there have been some notable successes (Davies, Offiah, Tait, Gibbs etc.), but all were pretty much at the peak of their powers when they arrived in league and only Offiah truly hit the ground running from game one. The rest took at least a season before they found their feet.

Thomas is long shy of his best and even if his fitness and body is up to it (which I doubt) you're looking at 12-18 months of substantial game time before he can be considered a true league player. By that time he could be 37. How many 37 year olds are tearing up SL at this moment? How many 37 year olds are even playing?? I can't think of any, but my memory is not what is used to be.

Try looking at the Bradford side i think a certain Steve Menzies is that age but he has been playing league for a long time. As i have said if he plays 3 or 4 time and gets some converts to league he will have done his job.

Menzies is 36 - and a league Legend.

Look - I don't bear any grudge against Thomas. I hope he works out. But I just don't see it happening. As an ambassador for CC I think he could be a revelation and that's where I see his future.

And Gareth Thomas is 36 now and a union legend.

Give the guy a chance if he cannot hack it well so be it but dont write someone off before they have played a game. And as i have stated before it can only raise the games profile in Wales and anything that can bring in new supporters can only be a good thing. And what is CC the (Challenge Cup) the team is now called Crusaders.

I wasn't aware that I was in disagreement with any of the above.

Having been watching him the few times he's played this season for the Cardiff Blues, he lacks the pace and movement off the breakdown that used to unlock some of the best backlines in RU and has been used as an impact sub when the game has been won or lost already to give the side direction. He clearly had achieved all he could in Union ,I don't know what Noble wants him for exactly, but his experience and passion when playing is bettered by no other man of either code.


I wasn't sure it was a good idea at first ,publicity aside, still am not , but we'll wait and see.......

waste of time and money and it just shows the ambition of the crusaders by signing over the hill union rejects