This is Warrington players only, its not players that had their career cut short by injury, its for Wire players who were british that showed huge potential but when you look back on their careers you would have to say that they under achieved.

Just name one player.

I'll start things off with Martin Crompton, at the time i thought we had the next Andy Gregory on our hands or even better. He had everything you would want to see from a scrum half, the ability to go past players, speed off the mark, a good passing game and great vision.

Obvious candidate, Kevin Penny.

Of the two already mentioned
Roper- unbelievable potential, just plain bone idle (imo). What a waste
Penny. Hung out to dry by Smith and at the time, Lowes(my only gripe with Smith). Hope he does really well for Wakey, he deserved better.

Some others from recent years
Lee Penny, his career just levelled and never kicked on
Kevin Ellis, always played well against average scrum halves, but was found wanting when up against Edwards/Gregory/Deryk Fox etc
Rowland Phillips, Devastating when he was in the mood, just a pity his "mood" wasn't as often at it should have been
OVERSEAS
TKL-Good player who SHOULD have been great.
Kidwell, again devastating when he wanted to be. Did we get him a couple of years too early

Chris Causey - wasn't he dubbed the "new morley" at some point?

I dunno but Phil Sumner was dubbed the next Les Boyd.

he wasn't hung out to dry at all.... he just wasn't picked.

WHAT...just choked omy dinner...hilarious

Alstead, Hulse & Highton

John Duffy

I remember when we went over to Oz and played in the original WCC, the lad had a stormer in Aukland IIRC and was labelled the next big thing by the media over there

He was made a scapegoat in that fiasco of a second half against Saints (1st game of the season 2009)
There were others (Johnson, LAnderson) just as culpable, but with them having big reputations, Penny "took the rap" (imo).
Anyway...this one's been done to death previously. We're just not going to agree on it

Its a bit early to say Kevin Penny had potential but underachieved at 23......we all would have said Westwood was an underachiever till he was about 24/25.

I wouldn't say Alstead, Hulse and Highton underachieved, its not like they were world beaters as youngsters who threw it all away in a life of booze, cars and women....they were good pros who didn't have anything special at SL level so ended up in the league below.

A player who only had a brief Wire career, but underachieved, was Dale Cardoza, he was basically built like Kidwell or Westwood but had explosive pace, he could have been an absolute tank.

On the other side of the coin from the underachievers are the guys who were probably built up too much in terms of expectations when they were younger, Steve Pickersgill we were told for years was a Morley-esque talent but when he came into 1st team he was just a decent good SL player who worked hard. Possibly Jon Roper as well - when he came in the team he was talked about as though he was heading for GB like Harris and Scully, personally I never saw it with Roper, thought he looked ok but was miles away from GB potential. Didn't Bradford try and sign him and we turned them down, so they got McAvoy instead?

Warren Stevens and Jon Duffy I would also include in that category, people thought they never achieved their promise, because they were built up above the level their ability justified in the first place.

Does Jimmy Lowes count?

Mike Wernham

Andy Bracek.

Paid a fee for him from Saints when he was 20? Paid a decent fee as well IIRC?

I remember a few Saints fans on their board cursing their club for letting him go.

Ian Sibbit..

Chris Rudd, Gary Chambers and Basil Richards were all touted as potential world-beaters when we signed them. *SIGH*

Lee Briers.

Has flashes of genius, was often hampered previously by mediocrity around him, nor has he been given the opportunities at International level, but simply hasn't been consistent enough over the years.

Great club servant, but a little short of being a true club legend perhaps.

Fantastic that he's somewhat rejuvinated under TS now though.

Rick Thackray. Looked like the answer to all our prayers for a devasting new winger back at the beginning of the 1980s, and even played for GB Under 21s. Lost his momentum somehow and I think he ended up as a mediocre player at Widnes.

Have to agree
Imagine if Lee had had TS helping him in his early 20's at Wire, I genuinely believe Lee Briers would have tore up SL.
Fantastic mercurial player dogged by inconsistency

I simply don't understand that.

I think Johnson and Penny were 2 of our best full backs in the last 20 years.

Penny was strong, good under the high ball - I only saw him drop one high ball - scored tries and returned the ball strongly.

Certainly wasn't a great passer of the ball ! but any player who scores 20 tries in a season and plays 100+ games for Wire can't be bad.

Now Dave King on the other hand was a giant Ozzie donkey who did s@d all for us.

You are on about Lee penny, Peckerwood is on about kevin penny

The Jackson brothers - one was meant to be on the verge of the Aussie test squad.

The other one did actually go on to score a match winning try in Aussie Grand Final.

How can Briers be down as an under achiever. When we had just sold Iestyn Harris, the biggest talent in the northern hemisphere, and got a teenage Briers with a handful of SL games at Saints, if someone had said then that Briers was going to be, at his best, the top halfback in SL, win two Challenge Cup medals and the Lance Todd, we would have classed that as fulfilling everything we wanted out of him.

People say he was not consistent enough earlier in his career, but how many players have there been who were consistent in their early and mid 20s, and spend the last 5 years of their career in a slow but steady decline....(Harris was a good example), Briers is unusual in that he's got steadily better year on year even past 30.

Think of the other British halfbacks who were 'more consistent' than Briers earlier in their careers - Ryan Sheridan, Paul Cooke, Richard Horne, Chris Thorman, Paul Deacon. Compare all of them when they were aged 25+ and compare them to Briers aged 25 plus and none of them were in his league.

I used to be a cynic about Briers for years but IMO on the basis of the later years of his career you can't say he is an unfulfilled talent, he steadily got better through his career and when he became the finished article he picked up the medals to go with it.

Neil Parsley, or I think that was his name,(correct me if i'm wrong Bick) watched him in a CC game at Hunslet, after slagging him off for most of the first half, we found out most of his family were sat behind us. Oops

Jon Roper; had it all. Explosive pace and power, unfortunately, he didn't seem to want to input the corresponding ingredient; application.