Matt Sturm had a 3 year deal. He hardly played.

I think Sturm fit in to the same class of player as Warren Stevens, who also (re)signed for us in 2002, after Cullen took over as a player who would get rated as one of the top performers in his position in the Championship, but wouldn't make an impact in SL.

3 years seemed a strangely long deal to give Sturm at the time. He'd had a run in SL with Hudds a few years earlier, and all the reports coming out of the Championship were very positive, great engine, great work rate, seemed to be a machine at that level. He lacked size though which was probably more of an issue in SL.

When we signed Matt Davis, I feared that he might end up in the Sturm category but he's done OK so far.

I'd talked myself in to believing some of the Anderson hype. It was his background, assistant coach to Melbourne Storm and the Aussie national team, I wondered if he was going to be one of those Aussie assistants who comes over here and does well, like McRae, Elliot and Raper. Also Plange had won the Championship with Hunslet a couple of years earlier.

The alarm bells were ringing with our signings though - especially given the departure of Langer, Nikau, Kohe-Love, Hunte and Sibbit - we suddenly became very pedestrian. I heard a story a while later that when Anderson got the job, he'd planned to bring Darren Britt over as the big signing, but the board gave him a very tight budget so he lost Britt to Saints and ended up taking punts on players who had been previously related as hot talents but who had lost their way and had question marks over their attitude/confidence/fitness: Dale Cardoza, Leroy Rivett, Craig Weston, Nick Fozzard. The only one which worked out was Fozzard, who after multiple years ravaged by injury finally stayed fit and proved to be a superb prop.

Anderson was also making positive sounding statements about saying the Aussie way was to focus on developing youth, and he talked up Steve Maden and John Hill and gave them a chance, but they were just out of their depth at SL level. Same happened with Leon Felton. He'd been on the Canterbury Bulldogs youth team and Ian Millward had given him a trial at Saints. I remember hoping we had discovered some blue chip Aussie youngster. Instead we got a skinny kid in a scrum cap who looked scared and out of his depth in the professional game.

It became clear really early that season that we were way way short on talent, and after Anderson was replaced by Plange, the board released funds which perhaps if had been available in the off season might have meant we had a more credible squad. Plange did spend it well, bringing in Westwood, Nat Wood, Appo and the loan signings of Halliwell and Mathers. But the squad overall was just too weak to work with.

I felt like Plange got a rough deal walking into a bad situation with us. He came across as an intelligent and charismatic guy who had a good eye for a player and was good at doing business but that season with us ended his coaching career and he left the game and pursued a couple of business ideas and became a pilot. Seems to have done well for himself. Possibly a loss to rugby league though.

Can't say I blame Rodwell for going home, he and his family didn't deserve that treatment.

Really interesting reading this, the first three all ended up at Doncaster at some point later. Craig Weston is one of my favourite imports to play for the Dons.

On his list of clubs it looks bizarre him ever being with us.

Huddersfield 1998-99
Workington Town 2000-01
Warrington 2002-04
Leigh 2005
Rochdale Hornets 2006

Used far too many players in 1997, 2001 and 2002.

1997 - 43 players
2001 - 40 players (I remember that Anderson got a lot of players in on trial, who just weren't SL standard)
2002 - 37 players

In 2003 it dropped to 25 players. The highest we've gone to since is 2017 with 32 players.

Used 30 players last year, and 5 of those only had 1 or 2 games.

Rodwell was injured and probably too much was expected of him, it's a hard act to follow Alfie Langer. With some of the poor quality we had you needed a player like Alfie to drag the standard up. I remember Wolfweb at the time and he did make himself far too accessible.

An interesting list for the 2003 squad and those incoming & outgoing players: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 816273.stm

An interesting list for the 2003 squad and those incoming & outgoing players: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 816273.stm

Quote ="shinymcshine"An interesting list for the 2003 squad and those incoming & outgoing players: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 816273.stm'" Nicky Wire is a Warrington fan?

Quote ="shinymcshine"An interesting list for the 2003 squad and those incoming & outgoing players: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 816273.stm'" Nicky Wire is a Warrington fan?

Not a bad squad in 2003

I don't know if I've deliberately eradicated d '02 from my memory (I missed a fair few home games that season, due to a job change/shift patterns), but some of the names that Sally has brought up, are just that.... names.
O' Reilly
Halliwell
Carouthers
Scott Wilson???
Sturm...
I mean, I was a season ticket holder from 83 onwards (for the next 20 odd years) and I could give a brief synopses of most players we've had since then, where they played, if they were any good, what era etc (providing they'd played a few times), but huge chunks of that 02 squad have just been wiped from my mind.
I remember the comedy value of Paul "I can crush tennis balls in my bare hands" Marquette (just for that quote).

Sturm?????? No. I'm lost.

I wouldn't know them, if I fell over them in the street.

Didn't we also have Simon Gillies at that time, if my addled brain isn't playing tricks on me. SoO experience. That was a laugh. They MUST have been desperate, Down Under, if HE got to that level.

Fill us in, Sally. I'm definitely at a loss (a bit like that team)

Scott wilson and gillies were 99

matt sturm was a backrow/prop from huddersfield, didn't make many appearances i think got farmed back out to huddersfield on loan his last year iirc.

we actually signed a lot of the huddersfield team that got relegated, cardoza, fozzard, laughton, livett(think he was there)

Kevin crouthers i think we got from wakey, he was one of the many splurge buys that bradford did when they became the bulls that never stuck a first team place. i didn't think he was too bad, didn't play much.

O'reilly had previously played at chorley, i think.

Danny halliwell we got in on loan from halifax, late on in the year, he scored a fair few tries and was a bright spark as sally said in a show of a season, there's still a guy that stands in the southstand that wears his 02 shirt with halliwell 28 on the back.

Cheers, FMC

How did they do for Doncaster?

I was quite open-minded when we signed them. Cardoza had been a figure of fun at Huddersfield, but when we played them a year or so before (and they beat us) I remember being surprised at how impressive an athlete he looked, he was built like a tank and fast too. Plange said at a supporters event after he was released mid-season that he just didn't have the focus to be a full-time player and was better suited to the part-time lifestyle where he could enjoy himself away from the field more and still enjoy a rugby career.

Rivett - fast but his confidence had been damaged after that Murrayfield Cup Final when Bradford attacked him with kicks. Scored one try for us when he streaked away then disappeared.

Weston - I remember him being touted in the Aussie rugby league annuals as a superstar youngster in the 1990s but he spent much of his career in the Championship in the UK. You would get these players like him and Cliff Beverley who would dominate the Championship and then just be so-so in Super League, maybe they lacked elite talent or maybe they struggled because of playing for weak teams when they were in SL.

Us signing Weston from Widnes was a bit of a saga. Widnes had just got promoted and we'd agreed to take their coach Neil Kelly to replace Van de Velde. Then Kelly backtracked and re-signed for Widnes, which they saw as a bit of a coup and were crowing about, before we then signed one of their best players from their promotion season in Weston. Then suddenly Weston was released by mutual consent and re-signed with Widnes. The official story was that Anderson was insisting players relocated to the local area and didn't like Weston commuting in from Yorkshire, but there were a lot of rumours kicking round at the time that Warrington had financial problems and would be struggling to pay wages so it was a cost-cutting measure.

In the end Weston didn't set SL on fire, but he would have been better than O'Reilly.

I have that brain fug for around 96-98, I realised that on the memories of 1997 thread. Although through the 1990s I was obsessional about RL, there were so many comings and goings at the time that I lose track of who signed for us when. I remember Paul Hulme joining us but can't remember exactly what point or whether he was hooker or back row or even if he played much. My memory is much sharper about the Brian Johnson era than the Dorahy era.

Would be a good quiz question this one, players from Huddersfield teams that finished bottom that ended up at Warrington.

I count 9. In addition to the 5 Cat says (assuming Livett is meant to be Rivett), there was

Craig Weston
Dean Hanger
Martin Gleeson
Graham Appo

10, if you count Chris Bridge, who was in Huddersfield's Academy but hadn't played in the first team and got picked up by Bradford when they got relegated.

Richard Marshall also played for Hudds at that time, and ended up on our coaching staff.

Tony Smith was their coach in the final of their 4 wooden spoon seasons, when they actually got relegated.

Dale Cardoza & Leroy Rivett both arrived at Doncaster in 2002. I know Rivett was on loan from Wire, it's possible Cardoza was too although I'm far from certain.

Rivett had just been to Chorley on loan before joining the Dons and only played 4 times for us without scoring. I believe we are the only club he played for and didn't score.

Cardoza had a good strike rate scoring 4 tries in 7 appearances. He would later re-sign for the Club in 2005, again scoring 4 tries, this time in 10 games. He did seem to have perhaps more to offer but as per the comments in your post, you were left wondering if off-field issues prevented that.

Now here's the twist in the tale ... Craig Weston broke the Dons try-scoring record in 2000 as well as being first choice goalkicker. He left during the 2001 season to join Widnes ... so it was the other way round in his case (my bad) ...

At one time nicknamed The Prince (a suggestion he would be the successor to Wally Lewis) it never really happened for him but he is well thought of here in Doncaster.

It was summer of 96 for paul hulme, there was a swell of media opinion that was still moaning how unfair it was that widnes weren't in SL, and that certain top quality players like the hulme bros, and steve molloy and martin pearson weren't playing at the top level.

widnes released hulme to come to warrington, he played backrow for most of 96, then a mix with hooker in 97, david hulme signed for leeds who were absolutely dog that first year in SL, arguably they had their full time change over struggles earlier than everyone else, and probably got ahead of the curve.

Ah yeah, we beat Leeds at Headingley in our first SL game and thought that was a good sign as they'd been the strongest challengers to Wigan in recent years, but they fell apart that season. I think Dean Bell was the coach. The retirements of Hanley and Schofield probably didn't help.

Back in those early days of SL the hierachy of clubs seemed to be in flux. Going to a fully full-time professional league seemed to level the playing field, also it was a low point of talent generally with a lot of top players having retired or gone back to RU. So getting a good coach and one or two good signings could transform a team's fortunes. Leeds went from being rank awful in 1996, to getting in Graham Murray and Iestyn Harris and being Grand Finalists and winning the CC within a couple of years. Cas were as bad as us in 97, then they got Stuart Raper and Adrian Vowles and became a contender. Halifax under John Pendlebury were up there for a while as well with Cardiss and Clinch. It was probably why we got overhyped when we signed Langer, Nikau and Gee and started getting tipped as 'dark horses for the Grand Final'...people had seen teams make rapid strides. Didn't happen for us though!

The Danny Halliwell stuff was ridiculous. 'Gerrim signed' people were posting as if he were David Stephenson or even Ronnie Dwane, whereas he was a journeyman back who could catch and pass and run a bit. Desperate times, indeed.

Halliwell played a big part in us staying up to be fair to the lad. That's how utter garbage we were that year!

Halliwell was popular because we were starved of any kind of pace in our back line (Rivett was quick, but only lasted a few games). Our other centres that season at various times were Kidwell, Maden, Crouthers, Westwood, Alstead. We usually ended up having one of the back rowers (Domic or Burns) playing there. It was the most pedestrian backline I had ever seen us have.

Halliwell was not a top class player but was a welcome signing because he was quick and also we'd had a few years where a lot of our signings had been ageing players (often from overseas) at the back end of their careers, so a 21 year old British guy with pace was the kind of signing we were hoping for at that time.

He scored 8 tries in 9 starts in a poor team, he also played well in some of the games we won, in one of the relegation four-pointers against Salford which was key to us staying up, he took an interception on our own line and went the length of the field which was about the most excitement the Fletcher Street end had had all year, and was probably peak Halli-mania.

The bubble was burst when Halifax recalled him from loan but his career never took off after that. He had disciplinary problems at Halifax and then ended up touring the Championship clubs.

But he did play his part in helping us stay up so has his contribution to Wire history. Plange did manage to use the loan market well to re-energise a side that was plodding to relegation, as well as Halliwell he brought in Richie Mathers and Graham Appo. Appo took a while to get in shape but was just hitting form at the right time when Cullen came in and he was also a difference maker in some important games with express speed.

Appo was simply phenomenal for us in the final year at Wilderspool and really came to the fore when Briers became injured.
It seemed to go to his head after he made the Dream Team and he came back the next season on the wing and unfit, and (possibly) miffed that he wasn't in the halves.
That next year never really took off and he made way for Andrew John's and was paid off.
A sad end really to his Wire career.
Don't know what happened to him after he left us.
Unfortunately al

Appo took the mickey after he'd been given an enhanced contract on the back of his 2003 season. Went back to Aus for the off season and got well out of shape and never looked like he could be bothered after that.

If he wanted to compete for a place in the halves when Briers was back he had no chance of outcompeting Nat Wood or Briers when he was in poor condition.

The sad thing about it was we had to cut one of the overseas players because of the reduction in the quota, and we prioritised keeping a waster like Appo over Sid Domic who was a top pro. Domic went on to have successful spells with Wakefield and Hull long after Appo had disappeared from relevance.

Looking back through Appo's career it seemed like there was a pattern, he had runs of spectacular form and then became anonymous when he was in the NRL too. He was talented though, had more to his game than just pace.

I remember being stood next to a fella in the South Stand, in one of Appo's last "performances". He was going beserk. If I was to attempt to type what he said, the police would be knocking on my door.
Suffice to say, it was on the lines of him being lazy at each club, after a wonder season. Roy "Chubby" Brown would've blushed.

Ah yes the "Big Brown Hamster"

In the space of 12 months he went from:

He's quick he's smart
He runs the Kwik-E-Mart
Graeme Appo

to:

He's fat he's slow
He's really got to go
Graeme Appo