Darrell Griffin (If he wanted to play) (Bibey)
David Solomona (Snitch)
Monty Betham (Henderson)
Paul White (Peterson)
Olivier Elima (Korkidas)
*James Evans Centre (Martin)

I would say the above players at the time, would be preferable to the players we now have at the moment in the same positon.

*Borderline, due to the short spell with us and the improvement in Martin this year.

One things for sure, he would not have left his mate stranded like that shower did to JD on Sunday.

Sure he was voted as the person you would least like to get in a fight with on the pitch in the NRL.

Right hard barsteward he was.

Hmmm, didn't do his reputation much good though when bitch slapping Goldilocks when he could have beat the living snot out of him.

First of all I have to say I agree with Big Cat. One bad month and the world has fallen apart for many fans.
Given our past I don't think anybody should be unhappy with mid table anonimity. When a team has a bad run it is easy to pick out players and coaches for that matter but it can just as easily be put right and we don't lose another game this year. (problem is of course everybody else is trying to do the same thing!)

Picking out a few comments:
"Kear has taken us as far as he can"
- If he has, we are in a decent position, why can't we accept that?
- Personally I think he has more to give, and can improve the team more
- Money will change how far the team can go now

"Toppo was a better coach than Kear"
- Toppo was one of my all time heros as a player, but can you say any individual player improved under his management? He brought some very good players to the club with his connections and did a good job with them, but personally, the measure of a good coach is whether players at whatever level they are improve. There are many that have improved under Kear, can't say that about many of our recent coaches.

"Squad of xxxx year was better than ours now"
- of course if you pick the best players from another team and compare them to the weaker ones from this team they will look better (eg Monty v Hendo). That is a very naive thread. There are a few players like Fox or Elima that with hindsight might have been better staying but if the likes of Solomona was still here (great as he was) the rest of the squad would be weaker. Anyone who has done a fantasy team knows you can't just pick all your best players.
- on early season form the balance looked great. We need to get back to that.

Overall I would change some players at the end of the season but I certainly wouldn't be changing many. (High earners and old men will be top of the list of course but not all of them)

Finally, I still say, the emotional challenges the team has had to face this year have not just been handled in a few weeks. The team need support in the tough times not a witch hunt.
Imagine the emotions Sam goes through every time he takes the field after his year. If he wasn't concentrating for 100% of the time you could hardly blame him...and I think he is doing a pretty good job. Same for the most of the rest.

Got few good punches in, was it Quins at home he got in a scrap and he was up against 3 Quins players untill some of our boys went marching in.

Always like to see a punch up now and again on the pitch, it gets the crowd going too.

If that is what you believe then would it be fair to say that Kear is not the right man for the job?

You mean when he smacked him as he lay defenceless on the floor and still missed with most of his punches! Ah the myth that is Monty Betham!

Not necessarily - because he doesn't always get the back up he would like - in cash terms - because of our 'poor' status.

JK is trying to do the best he can with what we have. I do think he has made some errors recently in hsi player and positional choices, but my opinion is only based on what I see in 80 minutes each week, and not on what happens on the training ground.

You mean the man that gauged his eye, it was obvious how it was going to end up. He had a short temper at times did Monty.

As I say, did himself no favors with Goldy, but you cannot doubt he was an enforcer for us - something we lack at the moment.

But are we not in a similar position re cash now as we were then? Or is there more to these rumours of financial problems? If not then in your opinion JK has replaced the majority of his squad with inferior players. Not having a go just find it interesting that you see it that way.

He was but I don't think he was as good as he is now remembered same with a lot of the players on this thread.

Really? If anything I don't think he was appreciated at all a the time (and his name very rarely crops up on here either, or not that I can remember anyway). Maybe it was the reputation he came with, maybe most expected a ball playing loose forward - but for me he did a very, very good job and was one of our better performers.

According to the SL website 35 tackles per game over the season, 3rd in the league overall (playing less games than the 2 that beat him Nutley and Alker). 795 tackles in the season is a big, big effort. I know what you mean about rose tinted looking back, but I dont think thats fair in this case.

Always felt he was third man in in a lot of those tackles not that that doesn't do a job at times but think it gives the stats a slightly different slant. It tends to be more the hardman stuff that still gets mentioned on here which I find strange as his reputation seems mainly to be built on stupid acts of violence on the field rather than actually being/playing 'hard'.

he did pretty well with his boxing and enjoying it. monty was a good guy, worked hard on the field. never took a backward step that i saw. monty's reputation was hard earned, i think you will find that out if you do your homework. the only thing he did really wrong was not hit mcgoldrick harder

Quit twisting my replies!





Player A gets signed by us on peanuts because they have a chequered history. Player gets a new start, plays well, proves themself and then gets told by their agent they are worth a kings ransom. Player A either re-signs at a significantly higher cost or moves on. We then have to sign player B and start the cycle off once more. This is how it is...unles....

We either pay the kings ransom for each player that demands it, or we go out and sign better players to start with - costing more anyway.

This is never a static curve and is one we constantly struggle with, particularly when results start going against us and fans lose faith.

We are, in reality, no better off than we were in 2004 - only difference is there are less players and more clubs with more money around - therefore if we don't raise the bar soon we will fall even further behind IMO - and that is not JK's fault!

I am not twisting anything!

Bar Solo, Semi, BJ and possibly Evans who on that list did any agent consider was worth a kings ransom? The majority are now playing in the national leagues or at Super League teams struggling more than we are.

Oh and possibly Griffin but he left for reasons other than financial!

I was referring to this years crop!



What we seem to have had is that we had a good team when we had some poor coaching and now we have decent coaching we have a weaker side.

Our constant trawling of the basement bargains does us well in the main, but in 2003 we took the decision to buy better - and got Sid and Solo. Just 2 players transformed our side for also-rans to contenders. I regret that we seem to have lost sight of this and that we seem to want to change half the side in one go - with the result that the other half are unsettled as no one is quite sure which direction we are heading.

As said before, although the quality across the club is not what I would like, the way to move forward, IMO, is to change 2/3/4 players each year until we get the balance of better players sorted. Then hopefully we can stabilise at that. The current policy is de-stabilising IMO.

Couldn't agree more.

but didn't we only add a couple of players this year? sausage and frank?

Yes, but they weren't part of a deliberate policy of 'stepping up'. In fact, having lost Adam, Duncan and Golden, it could - at best - be argued that we have stood still!

Could be argued, but we decided to promote the young lads to replace the others lost.
Fergy is a good replacement for Golden. He was not regarded as a starter last year.
Pitts, Bibb for Dunc a tough comparison but they are their for future potential.

+ Halley, which could have been longer if he hadn't been so good, damn him!

I'm sorry I thought you meant that Kear had been forced to dismantle the 2006 squad due to players wanting higher wages.



Personnally i still think the over all quality of the squad is better than 2006 and that has been achieved by the relative low turnover of players. Much rather a more balanced squad as now than all eggs in one basket ala Solo where he was expected to win games on his own see also Willie Poching and Gareth Ellis as previous examples of this.

They didn't all leave him. Brough got stuck in and a few others to a degree. However I get your point on this one and it's a worry. Some certainly didn't look interested and I for one believe that when it kicks off you get stuck in end of story. The nature of RL demands it's one for all and all for one, and some of our prima donnas seem to lack the backbone for a team sport like ours.