Wheelie has been playing for us at London Broncos.
For a lower half Super League club, you think this guy is pretty much what you need - he's got the ideal build at about six feet tall and sixteen and a half stone, he's English, he's in his prime in his mid 20s, he can offload, he's probably not one of the highest earners and he's available most weeks. He looks pretty solid and on his day can produce good stats.
His best performance was against Wakefield when he made 192 metres and 31 tackles.
But his workrate is inconsistent.
He often couldn't get a game in front of the Academy produced forwards which I found a bit surprising.
Whilst he was always good for his share of the tackling work in the line, he wasn't that keen to make marker tackles and he's miss about three or four tackles each game. I'm not 100% convinced he comes onto the ball with everything he has and runs his full weight each week. Despite having what seems to be a powerful physique he's only scored about 15 tries in over 170 appearances between his three clubs. He also didn't always seem keen to make his share of the drives and against the better teams he sometimes made only about 60 metres over the course of the game.
He also seemed to decrease in fitness over the time he was with London, but that could be partly to do with the parsimony of investment in off the field staff and facilities at the club.
However I think he is the best of your three signings from Broncos, especially if he can be motivated to his full potential each week and his conditioning is improved a little.
Your other signings are both a gamble.
Luke Dorn only scored four tries for the Broncos and made three clean breaks despite playing in two thirds of the games. He wasn't impressive at fullback and although missing only 33 tackles was not in place a lot of the time and I'd put him down as partly accountable for a lot more tries than that. At 31 1/2 I wonder whether the best of him has been seen already. You might see something from him alongside Seymour and if used as first receiver. I'd like to see him do well, but aside from a red hot spell in 2012 where he got 8 tries in 2 games he's not the player seen in 2011 and previous to that.
Michael Channing suffered because he was one of a large number of small men and weak tacklers on the field at once for the Broncos. He misses 3 to 6 tackles a game. This was partly due to the side being overrun and him being alongside other poor tacklers like O'Callaghan and Witt with Dorn as the fullback.
He played in the London 10 - Warrington 82 debacle and he was laughing and joking in the bar afterwards as if he was completely carefree but that turned out to be his last game for the club and I wondered if Rea took note of this.
If you can get a very good tackler either side of him that will be best for you. He is pretty handy with the ball, nice technique, he's quick rather than fast and he's got a lot of heart and enthusiasm for the game. I guess when you are raided by FC all the time you need to find a replacement and there isn't much choice in the British game with minimal talent in the centres. So it is a forced gamble I suppose.
Good luck for next season.
Rammo
