Players like Briers are just not being produced in youth rugby. Too much emphasis on size, speed and power now. Vision and a footballing brain are not given enough value.

Been told by one of the players tonight that Lee finds out on 22nd April.
If he needs an op, its basically career over.
He feels fine, but damage to discs in the neck is a bad, bad injury.

Here endeth the lesson.



Too many halves in our game, that are

auxilliary forwards - ie tackling machines (see Sculthorpe/Farrell as Stand-offs in Test matches a decade ago)
back-up merchants - always there to finish a move off (nowt wrong in that)
80 minute workaholics - you never saw Andy Greg doing any of THAT "nonsence"

I want a half to be a
one/two tackles ahead in the game, a la Langer/Johns
Knowing which 10 sq ft of pitch, his kick is going to land in
when a team play is "needed", not just doing it for the sake of it
have a definite rapport with his 2nd rowers (see Andy Greg/Mark Roberts as an example)

When Lee DOES retire (not any time soon

) he's gonna have big boots to fill

Absolutely spot on. John Woods, Tony Myler, Andy Greg, Wally Lewis, Alfie Langer (amongst others) were never known as workaholics, but they could unlock any defence with a drop of a shoulder ............. and dear god it was beautiful to watch.

Spoke to Moz on Friday and he said Briers finds out in 5 or 6 weeks. Moz is back in a month and if Lee needs an operation then it's season over.

Not quite true, but we should be worried.

My lads team has some excellent teens coming through, many of whom have been to Wires service area training ...... the only ones who made it to scholarship were the, shall we say 'solid' ones, who hit like a truck.

There are two brilliant ball playing thinkers in the Briers mould who Wire have dismissed - guess what? They've both been picked up immediately by other SL teams who are clearly more willing to let them grow (they're under 16) to their full size before deciding if they are physically up to the game.

You can build up muscles on a genius, but it doesn't work the other way 'round!

Wonder how O'Brien has made it to the first team?

If this is the end, I'll be more gutted for Briers than our team. He deserves to go out on the field rather than being told it's over by a consultant. However, as we'll all agree, his long term health is the most important thing. He's got 2 kids and another 50 odd years of life to get through, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter if he can't play RL again.

Hope all the above is irrelevant naturally and that he comes back ready for one last go round.

This and although he seemed quiite chipper on Friday night, bobbing on with bottled water, kicking tees and presumably 'pearls of wisdom', he desreves to go out on a high

Erm about why he is going to theatre I think it is a knee injury

eh

I hate those Kneeling theatres. Not as bad as the hand standing pubs though !