: Fri May 22, 2009 11:37 pm
the flying biscuit wrote:
in all honestly its quite sad to see........
he was never the player Stevo had him down as....i.e the best player in the world....
but he was a good prop forward, but that crack off Mason has taken an edge of him certainly...but as long as he's a Wigan players its funny to watch...
The Mason hit is what everyone uses as the turning point but I think Fielden had lost his edge a bit before that.
In the week leading up to the 2005 Grand Final there was an interview with Fielden in one of the RL papers where he was saying that he felt that his own form that season was below par, and nobody had noticed because the Bulls were on a dominant winning run, but as he was his own harshest critic etc, he wasn't happy.
Fast forward to mid 2006 when he signs for Wigan, that week I spoke to a fella who was on the backroom staff at Bradford, he pointed out that Lynch had been well ahead of Fielden for the Bulls so far that season and they were wondering whether Fielden had already gone past his peak hence they were happy with the size of the fee.
Fielden then rallies quite well at Wigan (as do Wigan) and is credited with turning their relegation bound season around along with Noble. Then he had to deal with the sad illness and passing away of his mother which meant he left for the Tri Nations in no fit mental state. He was behind the pace at the Tri Nations and he has never had it back since then.
Sometimes good sportsmen lose it and its strange to see. Brad Meyers was the Aussie equivalent, and Steve Harmison in cricket. The saddest thing about it is they keep going for a few years plodding around with everybody hoping that they will get it back to their former level.
