Smoking is bad for everything other than fish....
I wasn't making a point...I was informing you that John Woods seemingly had no less effectiveness and was one of the most naturally gifted players I've seen....but he smoked like a chimney!!

Just a quick trip to Google, to see several top level Aussie players involved in "shenanigans" which have ended up in bans, proves a point. Todd Carney and our own Joel Monaghan are cases in point. 9 times out of 10, all these incidents are alcohol related.

Can't these people "tone it down a bit", and realise that professional sport is a relatively small part (10 years at the top, unless you're REALLY good) of their entire lives.

... and these are just the booze ones.
They don't include the numpties who engage with "recreational pharmaceuticals".

Now, I'm not advocating an Oliver Cromwell style of puratinism. Just a level of reasonable level of self discipline.

Not much for a "professional", is it?

I'd have Dave Taylor in a heartbeat baggage allowance of not. We seem lightweight in the front row depth again.
I thought the whole reason to let last year's best forward at Wire, Sims, contract to run out was to add beef?

Strangely enough though, in the days when players worked 5/6 days a week ,trained twice a week & smoked & drank without enforced limits , the games were just as exciting & the effort put in by 26 working blokes during a game was non stop.

These lads are supposed to be professional ATHLETES.

They can drink and smoke all they want when they retire but will you EVER see Adam Peaty, Chris Froome, Andy Murray, Mo Farah or thousands upon thousands of other actual true professionals drinking and smoking?

Would you !

These rugby league players who eat (remember that interview with Bailey and Lineham when they said ordering pizzas was a regular thing?), drinking and smoking (how many times have we seen this over the years, not just with Wire), are a in disgrace.

They are professionally paid to be athletes and you aren’t an athlete just at training and the game, athletes are athletes in their whole life. True professional athletes time their sleep, weigh their food and live the life of an athlete 168 hours a week.

I remember watching a video with City’s David Silva who was offered a Bakewell tart to eat and he only had a bite and said that’s do as there was too much sugar in it to eat the whole thing.

I think rugby league players need to get their heads into 2018. Wake the up boys, the game is on its and we need them to become true professional athletes to take this game forward.

I've said it before. Rugby players are thick.

Do you think that’s what Roger Federer and Anthony Joshua do?

It’s more like something Ricky Hatton did and he wasted his career with his stupid lifestyle between fights.

Phil Chadwick said there are 10,080 minutes in a week. So you ask yourself all the time during the 10,000 - Is what I am doing getting me the best I can be for the 80?

Interesting discussion here but it's all based on the hypothesis that our players were out getting smashed in Stockton Heath, just because of one post reporting a second hand story. Interesting how this story hasn't been on twitter or been corroborated by anyone else on the forum, or maybe Stockton Heath is that bad these days that nobody other than Wire players and Wolvesno1fan's partner goes out there.

This story has legs because we have lost 2 from 2 and look crap so its good fertile ground to believe it. Classic tabloid stuff.

Lack of fitness might not be the issue. If we had been leading these games going in to the final 20 mins and then slacked off shedding late tries and the players were blowing I'd be asking questions, but if the issue is poor attacking structure and a high error count the problems are elsewhere.

Also haven't we often complained that one problem at Warrington, especially when it comes to giving young players a shot, is that there's [itoo much[/i emphasis on fitness and the physical side of the game from our coaching set up...?

Imagine there were two young halfbacks coming through the Wire academy today, a young Andy Gregory and a young Chris Thorman. Andy Gregory likes his beer and parties and carries a bit of spare timber but is a real true halfback that can break a defence, and that you don't see around much today. Chris Thorman is a more limited player but he does everything right. Says yes sir to anything the fitness staff want, eats what he's told to, gets the hours of sleep in, dedicates himself in the gym. The Gary Neville of rugby league.

Which of those two lads is going to get given a shot by our coaching staff?

My bet is, Andy Gregory gets shifted out early and ends up signing for Leigh or Oldham trying to rebuild his career part time. Garry Schofield would be all over the media complaing that there's a halfback genius in the lower grades who nobody looks at but SL coaching staff turn their noses up and say that lad hasn't got what it takes to prepare himself for the modern game. Meanwhile the young Chris Thorman gets his gig as the future of English rugby league, and when we come up against Australia, people say, why don't we produce players like they do.

My friend, not even a rugby fan, had no reason to invent the story of the players at the reception in the lake district.

I would love to know when they practice the basics of playing the ball and passing. Brown's passes into row A and dummy half passes above/behind receiver are common place. This is supposed to be elite sport. We look like Rugby Union from the 70's.

You don't practice playing the ball and passing. It's like saying you are going to the shop because you need to practice walking!

RD is right, rugby players are thick. Add that to money and time and they’ll be some stories. Let’s not kid ourselves that it’s a Warrington thing, the NRL and other sports is rife with drink, drugs, gambling issues.

Give a young lad a pile of cash, afternoons and evenings off and a minor celebrity status and you’ll see a fair bit of talent poured into a urinals.

Perhaps they should practice until they can do it reliably and accurately.

that would be a good analogy if it weren't for: Billy Slater, Jonathan Thurston, Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith who all came through the same junior club played together at the highest level and didn't drink,or Smoke, but acted like clean living role models, earned an absolute fortune became legends of the game won every honour known to man....meanwhile Todd Carney drank his own Wee Wee.

Good examples there biscuit.

You can argue (as I was doing) whether it's right for coaches to prefer the more limited player with the model attitude, over the kid with the rare talent who is less diligent in his preparation, but if you're the kid with the rare talent why wouldn't you have the model attitude and become the worlds best?

You see it all the time in football where players with all the ball skills become 'underappreciated geniuses' who are adored by fans: Gazza, Matt Le Tissier, David Ginola. It becomes a charming story when you hear about Ginola going for a cigarette in the showers at half time then scoring two belters in the second half, but what happens if a player with that talent turns themselves in to the ultimate athlete to play football, then you get Cristiano Ronaldo and his record of dominance over 15 years.

The Aussies seem to breed Cristiano Ronaldos in rugby league, players with stacks of natural ability that turn themselves in to the ultimate athletes to play the game.

But here's another question. If you take drive and preparation to the absolute extreme, can you actually overtake all the others with natural ability and become the world's best?

What about Ellery Hanley and Shaun Edwards for example, what talent did they have that separated them from the rest of the players of their era? I can't remember them having a great step or pass or kicking game, certainly not better than many other players. Was their entire game based around their physical attributes, mental toughness and their ability to read and understand the game? If so, could you take a player say with the ability of one of the Wire first teamers, and 'manufacture' them in to a Hanley/Edwards style all time great, if they were willing to go as far as Hanley or Edwards in terms of being driven to get there....?

How dare they have a drink & a pub lunch the day after a game. Get over it. these rumours have been around for years & only when we have a bad run. If you know something is fact take your evidence to the club. Where it belongs. Not on forums & social media. Enough phones about to take photos I am sure Mr Moran would welcome your interaction in person.

Seems to me that we are wasting a lot of money on fitness, diets and conditioning staff, they clearly are not recognising that their plans are not working and clearly not asking why?

I'd forget the diet and get them props on steak and chips for the season remained. Get some beef in them.

must admit, i haven't put much stock in this sort of stuff, its never as bad as you think.

However i started using instagram last year, and i'll admit i was quite surprised at how much pre xmas 'merriment' took place during pre season,

Another one was harvey livett getting some work done on a tattoo on his leg this week as well, that seems surprising to me, that doesn't seem 100% professional, i wouldn't imagine you can train 100% with that healing on your leg, maybe he's getting different healing advice from what i have had.

Do you really think it’s always as simple as that? I would argue that if there was a player as good as an Andy Gregory out there that he’d get cut a lot more slack and probably have to get out of line a lot more before he was shipped out. I think Danny Brough (although not fit to lace Gregory’s boots) is the nearest modern day example. Perhaps Tommy Martyn or Lee Briers are other examples of players that are a bit maverick that didn’t get a look in for GB. But would any of these players really have made much of a difference had they been picked? I’d say probably not.



Excellent point. The Aussies produce more top class players because they have a much larger player pool than us and therefore have more “cream on the top”.

Our player pool has decreased massively since the days of Andy Gregory – is it any wonder players of his ability are rarer over here? All clubs search high and low for talent. Everyone is watched from an early age. Nobody slips under the radar. I’d say if there is a fault it’s with the system that cuts players too early. At 19 many halfbacks aren’t fully formed, especially in a game nowadays that puts the emphasis on size and power.



I think both those players had a level of determination that set them apart. I don’t think you can coach that. You can point out the advantages of being professional in preparation and in giving 100% but both those players often went beyond what “normal” players were prepared to do and that was their choice. I’d say that level of determination is the equivalent in value to a great step or kicking game, probably better given what they achieved in the game. Your Andy Gregory might have a stellar career but he needed the Edwards alongside him and the Hanley running off him to achieve that.

Regardless of whether this story is true or not, it is clear that there is a huge gulf in how serious RL players take fitness compared to more popular sports (popular in terms of viewing figures etc).

Not saying that there aren't RL players who take this stuff really seriously, but clearly there are a large amount of them that don't.
Does this simply reflect the level of the sport though?
Other sports are so well run nowadays and are such professional environments and the cost of winning or losing is so great that fitness is one of the main priorities.

Talent and ability will not really improve with better fitness, although any of us who have played any active sport at any level, will know that the more tired you are the harder it seems to be to do the basics, let alone something special.

It is clear though that once you get to a certain level in sport, your talent and ability will no longer be enough on its own as you will be surrounded and up against equal levels of talent and ability.
At the top level of sport, you have to find advantages wherever you can and fitness is one of them areas where a real advantage can be gained.

In a sport like football, you'd probably have to say it's harder to get an advantage through fitness, because at the top level, every footballer is probably completely aware and obsessed with it and therefore they're all conditioned to be able to play for the entire 90 minutes at full intensity and if they aren't, they'll be playing in the lower divisions in no time.

In RL, there is a real advantage to be had because the culture isn't the same and there is still a lot of players who drink and maybe smoke etc, so if you are a real fitness freak, and you have better conditioning than any other player, you will stand out compared to the players who aren't as fit.
Having said that, is it not also true in RL that because the fitness and conditioning isn't as high as in other sports, then you can get away with not being in as good a condition as you could be??

It's not the fact they're drinking and smoking! I'd say for the vast majority no one could give two hoots on whether they drink or smoke. The point is that after losing the opening game of the season, to see the majority of the squad out on the lash without a care in the world doesn't look good. It gives the impression that they're not @r$ed about losing the game.

No one is begrudging them going out but why do it right where their fan base is and where everyone recognises them? take it elsewhere.

Re-open the carlton club, you'll have something to moan about then.