Who was it? Ive just been sat trying to think and can hardly pick any really good british signings, possibly in the last 10 years


Many have come with huge promise and simply been no good

Stuart Fielden - Half a million pound spent, world record transfer fee and monster wages. Ok he has improved slightly but in the big scheme of things, rubbish signing

Micky Higham - Couldnt fault his effort or passion but theres a good reason his contract wasnt renewed. Abysmal passing game

Richie Mathers - one of our worst signings ever

Mark Calderwood - Again, good effort but not good enough. Rubbish try scoring rate and often couldnt make the first team

Andy Coley - Absolutely rubbish this mon. Ive seen more enthusiasm in a dead dog

Danny Hill - Cack

Danny Sculthorpe - Far too injury prone and loved throwing a big daft pass out

Danny Orr - Another who came with a good reputation from Castleford and simply didnt deliver. Played ok in his last 6 games, thats it.

Wayne Godwin - Not a bad player to be fair but never a world beater

Those are just a few. Other superb British signings include Wayne McDonald, Tim Jonkers, Liam Botham and Oliver Wilkes. We havent actually signed many British lads at all come to think of it. We used to be the best at this...
Andy Platt, Martin Offiah, Kelvin Skerrett etc and now we have to make do with people like Andy Coley. Why?
Ive gone through our past ten seasons and the one who Id say has been a reallty good british signing is Terry Newton and at a push (a big push!), Danny Tickle.

Everyone else we've had have been imports or young lads who ave eventually been fired off

Probably Brian Carney or Terry Newton

Newton and Tickle, thats it.

This thread shows how big of a joke both our club, and british rugby league is becoming in terms of quality of player.

Newton was the first person who came to my mind.

Sorry to be pedantic but Tim Jonkers is Dutch.



I think the main thing should be how many GOOD players have we ruined? You do not go from being the leagues leading scorer two years in three to a bag of crap overnight.

Newton and Carney are the only two I can think of. Fielden should be but he has turned into average player at best...hopefully when nobby leaves we will get someone in who can help him rediscover his bratfut form

It depends what you mean by good. Fielden was good,his signing was on par with that of Offiah in the 90's but he hasnt worked out as good as we hoped. So whilst i get what your saying, its not really that we have not signed good players its just that they seem to become poor at Wigan. Also dont forget that the likes of Andy Platt,Offiah etc. was playing in a team that was already great. Fielden came to Wigan when we were really poor and hasnt had the calibre of players around him that Platt/Offiah did.

On the other hand we have also signed some very poor or average British players as well. Coley would be ok as a back up player but when you think he is supposed to be a first choice prop then you start to realise why Fielden is not as effective for us as he was at Bradford.

As RHJ said, Fielden was the last good British signing we made, it just hasnt worked out.

In terms of performance, it has to be Carney/Newton/Tickle.

Fielden. Good signing on paper. Awful in reailty when you think about it

Hopefully Fielden will be shown the door when Nobby leaves.

Yea, now. But at the time it was the signing of SL. Whelan had done it & Fielden kept us in SL. Nobody could have predicted what has happened since then.

Contract up at the end of this season?

2010.

Henry Paul - well English for Rugby Union anyway

you say that like he did it single handedly. Brian Noble and Michael Dobson kept us in superleague. Fielden helped. The biggest reason we stayed up was binning Moran

Its ok slating Fielden but the amount of pressure on him to play at the top of his game every week is immense. He has very little back up other than Feka for 15 mins and then 2 kids and a very average at best Andy Coley.

I bet if Fielden was in the Saints or Leeds team he would be superb again. Too much is expected of him and thats exactly the reason everybody bar IL said we needed at least one more very good prop.

Fact is, Dobson, Noble, Fielden and Lindsay all kept us in SL.

Fielden was more influental than Dobson, he brought leadership, enforcement and go forward.

Dobson in terms of kicking was superb, but that was the main thing he offered.

Noble was outstanding in galvanising.

Moran

Exactly.

Nobody expects that much of him. He gets dominated every time he runs the ball in. O'Carroll is outplaying him week after week.

... and to be even more pedantic, Carney is Irish.

Any more?

We have truly signed some rubbish in the last 10 years, but the more scary thing is how many players have come to Wigan and become rubbish. Wigan have ruined more good players than anyone over the last few years.
I have a bit of sympathy for Fielden, he has gone from being a successful part of a pack of monsters to being part of a pack that couldn't fight it's way out of a paper bag.
And yes, I would be happy to say that to the current bunch of jessies in person.

Totally agree. Bar Fekas 10 minute burst we have one of the least feared packs in SL. There is no real enforcer in there. Fielden at Bradford was not exactly an enforcer. He was just a very very energetic prop who would keep taking the ball up time and time again and would still look as fresh in the last minute of a game as he did in the 1st. At Wigan he is being expected to carry the whole pack on his own.

Calderwood was a prolific scorer for Leeds. Probably Wigan tactics explain his lack o scoring.

Agreed

Its a huge shame he hasn't recaptured his Bradford form but it could happen if we sign a decent prop to help him out

One reason I think he doesn't make the yards he used to is because he has no support when taking the ball up. I mean there are no dummy runners, nobody pushing up and looking for the offload. Teams now target him because they know whats going to happen(The Mason incident doesn't help either)