Roy Haggerty wrote:
It was always hard to tell how big players really were in those days, because they used to wear those great big baggy-tent shirts, so you could put some chunky 15-stoner in one, and he'd still look like a ten-year-old wearing his dad's jumper.
It was more Newlove's
frame. At 17 he was lanky. But
wide lanky. He looked like a professional athlete playing in a Featherstone team where average girth was closer to that found in Union. OLD Union (which is ironic because "professional athlete" is not a term usually associated with Newy). Can't remember the name of that dirty great pudding that pulled on a Fev jumper for many years around the time Newlove was breaking into the first team. You couldn't begin to compare the two in terms of physique.
Never seen a player before or since who between tripping and hitting the ground could make thirty yards. He intuitively grasped how best to micro-manage distributing his body weight to gain the maximum advantage. That's not something you could ever begin to teach.
No disgrace that Percy can't match Newy's balance. But he's making a good fist of his body swerve and fend. If he could develop an in-and-out (which I categorise as more drawn out than a side-step but significantly quicker than a swerve) he'd be devastating. Newy's in-and-out was arguably his most dangerous attribute (although his fend was positively fearsome).
