Bradford certainly saw the best years of Medley's career, as others have said he was a forward who could really change a game and one in hindsight we were wrong to release.

Big Roy was one that i think most Leeds fans at the time were unhappy with.He was a seasoned GB international by the time he left and still only 26 with plenty still to offer.Iirc Dixon fell foul of Laughton's revolution but was always one of my favourite players growing up through that era.Bradford certainly got good value out of all three players.

Dave Heron was another good one we got,classy player, would of liked him 5 years earlier though

If you get a chance check out Medley's workrate in the match I mentioned, phenomenal. And he hit like a runaway train.
Only back row forward I've ever seen score direct from fielding a kick off, and he did it more than once. Spectacularly at Wigan one night in a mid week game.

Dixon had a great offload - for me he was a front row forward (his best GB appearances were there next to big Roy), he had the hands and that great one handed round the corner offload.

The consequences of having revolving door policy on coaches and players is sometimes lost on the more recent generation of supporters (not their fault I suppose). A revolving door has the habit of hitting you in the ar$e if you use it often enough.

I remember a tale told a while ago by Dave Hadfield about Paul Dixon.

Paul Dixon and an unnamed teammate are getting changed after a game and discussing their recent selection for the GB touring team. The unnamed one turns to Dixon and says “Have you asked your wife if she’s ok about you being picked for the Lions tour?” (the about 6-8 weeks long)
Dixon, looks incredulously at the inquirer “No, she doesn’t have a lot of say to be honest.”

Quick question , wasn't Dixon one of many who gave up when the game went full-time pro due to outside work commitments ? might be way off the mark , just interested .

Well he had a dairy farm so that might have had something to do with it. Karl Fairbank was the same.

Paul Dixon was the first player to have the honour of being my favourite player when I were a lad. When I first started going to Headingley the sight of him tear-arsing his way into the heart of the opposition pack from every kick off was simply part of the ritual. Neer slowed down going into a tackle, very unlikely to do anything flashy like a step. Just crashing straight into the first tackler he found. What's not to enjoy about that?

I didn't enjoy it when he scored 4 tries for Leeds vs Northern at Odsal.

Not to draw any comparisons to other current players, but didn't Pratt start off as a Stand-Off signed from Featherstone? ........

I believe so.

Laughton had an eye for talent but he also made some bum decisions. Letting forwards like Powell and Dixon go to replace them with the likes of Mick Worrall and Richie Eyres.....deary me.

Anyway Bullseye, whilst we may have taken a few up the arris from your mob over the years I doubt any one signing was as damaging to us as the Harris one was for you.

And no signing, including Lowes, was as beneficial to you as Peacock was to us.

Still cannot believe Leeds allowed Powell and Medley (at the time I thought they were the new [iimproved[/i Eccles and Cookson) to leave: it coincided with me losing interest in supporting the team for quite some time. Years in fact.

Thank god.

thanks guys. Brought some good (and bad) memories whilst reading everyones posts.
Stevie Pitchford was my 1st Leeds hero. and then for some reason a certain centre who i think was the only person in those days to wear red boots.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Richie Eyres at Widnes was better than most forwards around, better than any backrower we see now in Super League.

Richie Eyres at Leeds, was the biggest dissapointment I have seen in a player at Leeds. Dissapointment becuase he was so damn good before coming here, and so damn cr@p when here.

I'd agree with this. He was part of that horrible Widnes pack, and a total pussycat at Leeds. I suspect the weight of his wallet limited his ferocity a bit.

He stands alongside Bradley Clyde in the disappointing backrower stakes. It wasn't Clyde's fault he got injured, and I don't blame him for it, but he was real world class and we never really saw it at Leeds.

Ah the Bionic Barrel .... Lovely stuff



My early(ish) hero was Kevin Dick ( pretty close to been a mini mee bionic barrel ). Even then I use to question the erudition of the head coach. Why was Sammy Sanderson preferred ??

My late father used to call Les a ponce. Damn fine player though. Did he not play stand off once at least too? Bet TVOC can enlighten me

Ah yes, the inimitable Steve Pitchford. I remember a night game in Cas when their ginger winger of that time (Richardson I think) put his head in the wrong place when attempting a tackle. You could hear the smack as his head hit Pitchford's thigh from the other side of the ground. Needless to say his further participation was, shall we say, a little on the tentative side

I never thought Eyres [ithat[/i good Gotcha. I thought Emosi Koloto was a much scarier and more skilful player in that Widnes backrow.

I thought Eyres was brilliant when at Widnes. And it's not like it was just one season, he was consistent. Comes to Leeds, and yeah then he certainly wasn't "that good".

The whole gestalt entity was pretty scary if you ask me.

Perhaps scarier than the sum of its parts though, with hindsight.

I don't know if Eyres was so good he was better than anything else around or the best players today, but he was certainly a LOT better than we saw at Leeds. That was the disappointment. It's that difference in relative performance that makes him the biggest of let downs at Leeds.

With regard to hindsight, I doubt many people thought he was a naff signing at the time.

Les Dyl was a good player,unfortunately one of my lasting memories of him was his performance for Great Britain at the sell out test match at boothferry park hull.
This against one of the best Aussie sides of recent years,he was swatted aside several times as the Aussies beat us.
Regarding richie eyres, he claimed injury for several months and I believe we still had to pay him his contract money.
For a long time around that period we made some awful signings.

At Widnes, Eyres had the likes of Grima and Sorensen frightening the bejesus out of opposition packs so he could do all the fancy running over half-backs stuff out in the channels.

At Leeds, they gave him Neil Harmon and Harvey Howard to protect him.

On Les Dyl, bit harsh to have your abiding memory of him being taken apart at the end of his career by a young Mal Meninga. A fine centre equally capable of scoring himself or setting tries up for his winger.

I'm taking my childhood Les Dyl obsession abit too far by sporting a look alike Tash during Movember.
Only prob is i no longer have a full head of 70's hair.

On reflection it was a bit harsh, I did qualify it be saying I thought he was good player.
In mitigation for him, the Aussie side were to use an over worked word awesome . All the big names were in the squad,and firing on all cylinders .