: Mon May 25, 2009 1:48 am  

sally cinnamon wrote:

Neither would Fa'afili. If Hicks was a Kiwi however he would have had a lot of Test caps, and tries.

Fa'afili was a decent player, but he was limited compared to Hicks. He was quite strong, and in his last season or so was making use of this more taking the ball up early in the tackles to help out the rest of the team. He was also great at taking high balls (probably his best strength) and a pretty reliable finisher as if he was put on the outside with 10m to the line he would duck down and dive in at the corner and was hard to knock out into touch because of his size.

What Fa'afili wasn't, which Hicks is, was an athlete. Hicks can play any position in the back line, return kicks, field a kick in the in goal and sprint his way out of it, he can beat players for pace and all round inspires confidence in the way Grose used to in his first few years.

Hmm. I think people are going over the top with their praise of Hicks. IMO he is a solid dependable player. I think his kick return, especially at fullback is particularly poor. I also rarely see him beat players for pace. His tries are usually from close range, he is a natural try scorer, but then so was Henry.

I thought with his move to centre, Henry showed the kind of player he could be, and I'd have liked to see him stay.

: Wed May 27, 2009 5:07 pm  

Strange how Henry's still only 28, same age as he was 2 years ago.

: Wed May 27, 2009 5:54 pm  

Teessidewire wrote:

Strange how Henry's still only 28, same age as he was 2 years ago.

Yeh, that happened to me as well!

: Wed May 27, 2009 6:34 pm  

Dave T wrote:

Hmm. I think people are going over the top with their praise of Hicks. IMO he is a solid dependable player. I think his kick return, especially at fullback is particularly poor. I also rarely see him beat players for pace. His tries are usually from close range, he is a natural try scorer, but then so was Henry.

I thought with his move to centre, Henry showed the kind of player he could be, and I'd have liked to see him stay.

Question when you look in the miirror do you disagree with yourself aswell??

: Wed May 27, 2009 11:58 pm  

stringers_wolves wrote:

was gutted when fa fillas went, he was amazin

g

: Thu May 28, 2009 12:37 pm  

FireWire wrote:

How about aged 23, when Fa'afili scored a hat-trick for New Zealand against Great Britain. Hicks never even got near representative selection for Australia.

Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of Hicks, and believe he is a better player, but don't think he's twice the player that Henry was.

Oh yes that fateful night in Blackburn.
I was there, he didnt do an awful lot more than any winger would have done that night.
I'm not saying Henry was a bad player, anything but, Sally pointed out the differences between the two very well.
Hicks maybe doesnt dance round players anymore but im certain I read somewhere a few years back Hicks was a <11 second runner in his pomp in the NRL, he was good anyway, very good.

Fa'afili signs for Leeds : Fri May 29, 2009 12:10 pm  

Leeds RU http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/8073595.stm

Leeds RU http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/8073595.stm

: Fri May 29, 2009 6:54 pm  

the original stevo wrote:

Question when you look in the miirror do you disagree with yourself aswell??

Isn't this board for discussion and debate?

I didn't realise I had to agree with everything people said. Sorry.

It's not a very interesting forum if somebody makes a statement and everybody else just responds with 'I agree'.

I like Hicks, but have a look at the tries he has scored, how many could have been scored by other players. Probably the majority. Henry used to score tries that other players couldn't. His link with Briers' kicks was outstanding.

: Sat May 30, 2009 8:35 am  

I was watching Sky Sports News before and it came up on that Rugby Union tab on the bottom of the screen it came up that Henry had signed