+1

yeh fine player but any of you pie eaters who have good memories how do you rate George Fairburn in your list of Wigan greats ?

Slater is the complete fb, rads not anywhere near the same league.

Sam has potential to be the greatest British fb of all time.

Coming from you that means very little.

Rads - Used to rate Rads as the best in the business but as someone said he hardly broke a tackle. He didn't have too though. His job was to defend and boy could he do that. One of the best one-on-one tacklers I've seen. Whilst his partnership with Lam and Faz was good it wasn't the partnership that Billy Slater has with Cam Smith and Cooper Cronk.

Webb - Good attacking fullback who is safe under the high ball but not sure his tackling is as good as Rads. The fact that Lance Hohaia gets in at 1 ahead of him for NZ says something as Hohaia can't catch a cold.

Wellens - Good reader of the game and a great tackler but slower than a one legged man doing the 800m.

Sam - Not a fullback but there's no reason why with Rads and Hampo as coaches he can't turn into one. Devastating when he chimes into the line. Needs to improve under the high ball.

Billy Slater - Makes mistakes like all players but his broken field running and as mentioned partnership with the halves is the best ever. The best of this generation by far. Best ever? Not sure you can compare as the roles have changed too much imo.

love off and learn the game

[/u


The best fullback I've seen play for Wigan

I'd probably agree and say he was the most complete I've seen at Wigan in that he could catch, kick, tackle, had good pace and could beat a man.

Correct, Man Of Steel winner in a relegated team, says it all about George, and a nice bloke

He certainly is, had many a chat with him in the Poacher (Winstanley) on a Thursday night.

And me.

By far.

Slater by a country mile for me, even if i dont particularly like the bloke!

Another mindless empty post. Seriously concentrate on the game rather than mocking people over their opinion. You're life surely can't be that empty. Oh wait a minute...

Discussion is welcome but your stupid of shoot comments aren't.

hypocrite

Sorry littleman; I'm not entertaining another mindless back and forth with you. I made an opinion about the Radz, you don't have to agree, I don't care what you think really.

You need a life, I'm not going to be here to fill it for you with arguing on a RL forum, it's very sad.

All the best.

but you keep doing...

Best Wigan FB in the modern era is an interesting question. I thought the young Henry Paul's best position was FB, he was fantastic there. What a player he was at the outset of his career, in his early 20s he was one of the very best players in the world, he was such an exciting player.

I literally can't believe people are still saying this!

Radlinski was a good club player and 'solid' but Slater at his best is vastly superior (and Minicello before him, and Lockyer before him). Personally, just because of the sheer class he oozed every game, my favourite full back of all time is Lockyer.

The reality is that over the last 15 years SL has produced virtually no players that would be widely acknowledged as 'world class' (i.e. outside fans of their own club - certainly not here in Australia). Full back (followed by centre) would be the two absolute worst positions as far as SL talent goes compared to the NRL. Radlinski (and later Wellens) looking better than other SL fullbacks including average overseas ones is frankly not hard.

connolly

I'd have taken Radlinski at his best over Minichiello at his. Slater's another class.

Slater is an amazing runner - but not the best full back for me.

Look up "Tony (TREX) Williams using Billy Slater as a speedbump". When did you ever see Radders, Connolly, Wellens, Hampo, Jack or even Webb look so blatantly terrified of the big man coming at them, avoiding making a real tackle? As any half decent RL player knows, tall/big lads should be fairly easy for a good tackler to bring down with a few yards of space.

Personally always felt safest with Connolly at full-back, followed by Radders. Paul was simply an amazingly gifted player and to be fair Wellens has been superb for that lot. It may be sentimentality, but in the back of my mind I always ranked Hampo for his all-round game - I always picture him springing up for the high ball with a textbook leap, and a pair of incredibly safe hands. Plus he had a nasty streak

Billy Slater by an absolutely enormous margin from that list.

It just depends what you want from your fullback. I grew up watching Radlinski, he was defensively fantastic, just watch the 2002 cup final for a masterclass in defensive fullback play. Slater, attacking wise, is absolute quality. The guy is a freak, his footwork, acceleration and positioning is world class without a doubt, but defensively he's no Radlinski. The thing is, he doesn't have to be, he's there as an attacking weapon which makes it very difficult to compare the two, in some ways they are/were playing in different positions.

Chris Ashton he he