Congrats to Lachlan Walmsley for winning joint Championship Player of the Year. Lets hope the rumours aren't true and he can build on for next season!

The only "journalist" (and I use that term lightly) who has reported on Walmsley to Wakefield is someone with a track record of telling outright lies, which is usually something that someone else has told him and he has believed as gospel.

If, and its a big IF Mick Gledhill does talk to agents, they're not daft, they know they can feed him any old tripe and he'll lap it up. It could be a ploy to drive Lachlan's stock up a bit. It's no secret Craig Lingard has a "wish list" of players he'd recommend to Castleford, and he's possibly in for the main job now. Wakefield have been linked with a few players but to my knowledge haven't signed anyone yet, they're talking about throwing money about so will be linked with everyone.

Mick gledhill is an unprofessional unobjective journalist ( and I use that term lightly) it was no coincidence that Bradford announced Sam hallas with a mixed response as we announce obrien, then gledhill announces walmsey going to Wakefield whilst as usual wearing is Bradford hat , he can’t help himself.

Great personnel achievement for Wombat he's really worked his socks off in training and is twice the player he was when we signed him, apart from his try scoring physically he's not the same player that was getting battered at Batley and in our earlier games of 2022.

Much as I want him to stay and work on his defence it wasnt good enough in the latter part of the season,London home and Keighley away.

I think a SL side will come in for him now , if not i just cant see the point of waky unless the wage is too good not to.

What i hear, Wakey is a done deal, double money from what he was on at Fax plus comes with opportunity to go onto SL with them should they achieve that. With the new investment/owner and finally the upgrades to the ground, i guess they will be best placed to do this.

TBF a few games he was lacking massively in defence Widnes away, Keighley away , Swinton at home

makes me think why he is not in SL yes he can score but defence no

Mark Preston's defence wasn't great but a winger is there to fly and score trys and Lachlan can certainly do that. If he is going the biggest disappointment is if it's to Wakefield.

It did not take the opposition long to work out he jumped out of the line, should not have been rocket science for the fax coaches to say ,” ok you do that and do it successfully, therefore come inside take the centre and let the centre be the outside man.” Might not work all the time but will stop opposition wingers walking in .

Article in the courier interviewing Finn says ‘ it’ll. be hard work keeping walmsey’ but it’s not a done deal as ‘ keeping him will me massive for the club ‘

Half the tries that Walmsley got blamed for were not his fault, it was usually his centre/halfback/2nd row that were to blame but Walmsley was often the one who ended up looking silly because he is trying to make a play happen.

Another way of looking at A & D at our level no one will be perfect but would we rather have a winger who scores 30 + each season and concedes 6 or one who scores half that for and against?

The first. It's a situation akin to Rob Worrincy although his ratio of tries against him as opposed to those he scored was much higher than LW's.

Just as a counter argument, name some good championship wingers who are good defensively.
I would also say that walmsleys best form of defence is his attack via his intercepts .

Aye, it's a case of getting the balance right and chosing when in a match it is right to take the chance of an interception as opposed to defending the moment. Whichever way, a winger such as Lachlan only comes along very rarely and the possibility of him leaving, especially to a club like Wakefield in our own division, is part of the reason i have held back from buying a season ticket this time. Let's hope he stays with Fax at least until his present contract is up.

Walmsley is a generational try scoring talent the likes of that we have not seen since Greg Austin, lets hope we don't have to wait as long to see another like him.

Greg had his critics too. "can`t defend and lazy " were comments i heard around me. I remember him missing a tackle and the cover working hard to close down the break and Greg gently walking back. Players that work hard and have talent generally play internationally and not at Fax any longer!

Writing about Austin made me think of the best centres I have seen play for Fax
John Burnett ( though only at the end of his career) ,Tony Anderson , John Schuster and David Willicombe.
Schuster probably my favourite he could do it all.

Anyone have suggestions?

I loved Schuster. The best was during SL and the last game of the season was at Odsal and the bulls hadn’t lost a home
Match all season and we’re planning a massive after game celebration for not losing all season. There was a bulls fan standing behind me And my Dad gobbing all match about how Schuster was a spent force and too old and how Fax were.
Step up Schuster who intercepted a pass on our try line and went the distance to score in the corner then converted it to win the game. That was a truely beautiful moment. Didn’t see the bulls fan as he slinked off somewhere and we did ruin their party.

Happy Days!

Was only 1 season and techincally not normally a centre but a certain Greg Florimo played the majority of his rugby in that position for us and was class.

Other than that I think the Austin, Schuster, and Watson era takes some beating. The sky game against hull Kr where we put over 70 on them, Watson was simply unplayable. More recently I think Stuart Donlan was very, very good for us and was not far off international honors, another who's natural position was not centre but for whatever reason ended up there and showed true quality.

I had thought about adding Greg Florimo to my list as he was my sons favourite player of that era. But only one season counted against him.
Donlan oused class but again I don`t thjink he played many games for us.

Just checked , he played more than I thought, 68 according to wiki

I had one stood in front of me all game really giving to us both barrels.The look on his face at the end was priceless.

Schuster looked to be running in treacle as the line approached. The drop goal with the step and kick off his wrong foot was top drawer.