Oh, right. Sorry. I thought we were talking about someone who had dragged the name of RL into the gutter. My mistake.

Does help when you read what you've linked to....



Cunningham would of got a lot more than a £2,500 fine and a suspended sentence if he'd of taken any banned substances willingly.

But, carry on

Sigh.

The lenient sanction that was applied to this offence was shameful.

Seem to remember he was prescribed an amino acid acid vitamin which reduces weight by increases the metabolic rate.

The chap guility of the prescribe was an RFL official working for the international team, later it was found out that this chappy had got the position under false pretences and had no medical qualification or background.

The chap was sacked as a result, while KC was found guilty but with mitigated circumstances.

Not quite.

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2003/aug/01/rugbyleague.sthelens[/url

Saints and KFC squirmed alot. The guy was working for Saints when KC was caught out. And no matter what, in other sports it is ULTIMATELY THE PLAYER'S RESPONSIBILITY.

Please don't ever try to encourage people to vote for an award/appreciation for this guy ever again. Have you no shame?

8.5 / 10 club career
6.5 / 10 int career
Nobody in last 10 years would score higher IMO

8.5 / 10 club career
6.5 / 10 int career
Nobody in last 10 years would score higher IMO

Was there not a survey and poll carried out and published in the Rugby League World last year on the Top 50 players in the superleague era.

Kieran Cunningham voted No 1 if they carried out a poll in 5 years time, KC will still top the list.

Present top 3 Cunningham, Morley and Senior

Unfortunately it also looks very bad if a sport's governing body uses an unqualified nutritionist who uses that as a position from which he can go on to mislead players into taking banned substances. It would appear to any outsider that the person supplying the banned substance had the endorsement of the RFL, so pretending otherwise would be just silly.

Keiron by the way has played in 27 internationals.

Many people dont think its as high as that due to the fact that he chose to represent Wales, and played for them in World cups.

Sadly people memories tend to forget Wales and concentrate solely on GB or England.

Cynicism and bitterness. It's the British disease.

an RFL approved nutritionist poisoned him with an illegal substance - hardly a major offence on Cunningham's part.

My only problem with Cunningham is the way he messed Saints and the RFL around in 2002 when he was flirting with rugby union. Made himself and the sport look very bad IMO.

great player though, and rightly will be remembered as Saints best ever hooker, and one of the best of all time in the sport.

Give over. Keiron was offered a shed load of money to play union, it would tempt anyone. The outcome was that he turned them down to stay for less, you can't knock that. The likes of Robinson went strolling off purely for the money and he doesn't get criticised for it, so why should someone who turned them down?

Apart from the 2000 World Cup when he played for Wales there has never been any evidence of him being able to handle the Aussie national team.

He would have been average in the NRL.

Yes and should have been banned for life. UNless of course he was pregnant.

He also never step out of the comfort zone of playing for a very successful St Helens side. That and his lack of effort to play for his country prevent him from being class as an all time great or a legend of the game.

At international level Sculthorpe gained more respect than either Farrell or Cunningham. Whilst he may have played '27 times' in internationals, you'd have to wonder whether his reputation would be greater had he played more often against Oz.

IMO at his best Cunningham is a very good player, and would probably have done OK in the NRL had he gone a few years ago. I agree entirely with him being a Sts legend, but you can't pretend that he's done much internationally at all.

Out of those 27 tests he only played against Australia 5 times though.
For GB in
1999 Lost 6-42
2002 Lost 10-64
2005 twice Lost 6-20 & 14-26

For Wales in
2000 Lost 22-46

Not many games against the number one team for such a long career.

Injury blighted his chances against Aus.

As a St Helens lad with a huge family - why should he have to? He's living the dream for his hometown club.

Don't forget that St Helens were not succesful when KC broke into the team. It's not as if he's riding on the back of others, he IS the "very successful St Helens side".

Piggy Riddel was average in the NRL. If you're suggesting KC wouldn't be able to have out performed him, you work on a different logic than me.

Cunningham had a massive reputation in SL but never really seemed as interested in playing or performing for GB, particularly on overseas tours (this has long been a problem with Saints players e.g. Newlove, Long, Pryce etc). Terry Newton has made more of an impact at hooker internationally in the same period.

IIRC after the drugs affair he wasn't much of a player for a season or two and was being used as a prop. This seems to be glossed over by many Saints fans.

And then there was the whole threat of him being poached by Welsh RU. Why couldn't he just commit to RL? It is unlikely he would have made it in RU at hooker anyway with the game being so different in this position.

IMO Senior has been far more consistent both domestically and for GB. He's still the best British centre by some distance, and has not needed to be spelled for half the game for the past 4-5 seasons.

Senior hasn't played in the front row for 14 years! It's far easier to achieve such longevity as a back.

As a successful saints player, he is only good because the players around him make him look good, so is Long, was Sculthorpe, Lyon, Graham and Roby now and this will soon be the case of Wheeler, lomax and Eastmond etc. All of them are average at best and only look good because of the class around them. This is fact.

Fair post. I think what stops the same sort talk about Senior (and this is only my opinion, mind), is that, although he's been one of Britain's top two centres since what 2002(?), I don't think a lot of people rate him as highly as they did the likes of Newlove and Connolly. We've also had a lot of high quality overseas centres in SL over the last 10 years, whereas we've tended to do better at producing our own hookers and Cunnigham has been the best of that bunch.