: Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:51 am  

Wire_Yed_79 wrote:

played against Turley when he was at Leigh Rangers, talk about one man team ? Always thought he would be bigger if he'd left Leigh but credit to him for staying loyal to his home town club

I really, really admire loyalty in a person, but you have to wonder what heights Turley could've reached had he left his comfort zone of Leigh, where to be honest, he rarely had a bad game, because most of the opposition was beneath his personal level of quality and he was a points machine, so the fans would forgive the odd knock on.

philipk wrote:

But both have had secure jobs at BNFL which they didnt want to give up - which is fair enough as you never whats coming on an RL pitch .

I imagine Turley would've had a decent day job, too, in the Leigh area. It's a shame, though, because while you do have to go for financial security, Danny Brough took a pay cut from his job as a plumber to sign Pro terms and hasn't done too bad for himself within the game and I'm sure could forge a career post-Rugby either back in plumbing or in the coaching game.

Obviously, it depends if an offer was there and, if so, if it was beneficial in financial and developmental terms for the player; there wouldn't be any point, for instance, Turley leaving leigh in 2002 for Salford, who were struggling in SL and probably weren't into developing players as much as they were into survival in the top flight, but if a Castleford or a Hull had came in, perhaps you could argue that at the point in time, a move could've really kicked him on a few gears.

: Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:33 am  

Big Ask wrote:

There's also the players that never really develop or fulfil their potential. Look great at 21/22 and no better by 26/27.

Mark Gleeson?

: Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:36 am  

sally cinnamon wrote:

That 97 competition whilst being a bit of a farce, had a stack of young talent on show, especially from the Aussie side, there were some real crackers coming through. Hill, Kimmorley and Swain at Hunter Mariners, Gower at Penrith, Lockyer, De Vere and Carroll at Brisbane, Rogers and Dykes at Cronulla, Stacey Jones at Auckland, El Masri at the Bulldogs, all these guys were about 19 or 20 in that tournament, it was the start of a golden generation.

Despite all those the two upcoming Aussies who I thought were the best of the crop in that tournament were Russell Richardson at the Sharks and Andrew Dunemann at N Qld Cowboys. I thought Richardson going to be the Kangaroos centre for the next decade, I think he might have actually been about 24 or 25 at the time but he was one of those late starters who had only just come into first grade. Never quite hit the heights and just had a couple of Tests.

I never knew if it was true but I heard a rumour at a Squadbuilder meeting in 2002 that Plange was trying to sign Richardson for us.

From the English side, around that sort of time Nathan McAvoy was emerging at Salford, he looked like he was going to be the next Paul Newlove.

I really though Richardson would be a star, had it all; pace and great strength. Was it a knee injury that did him at Cronulla? He went to Souths had a few games, then completely fell off the radar.