49er wrote:
The majority on here were in favour of securing King on a decent contract and few predicted a substantial drop in performance which did start last season. If Wigan or St Helens had beat us to signing him up then there would have been major criticism for our lack of ambition.
This is true and its also a reflection on the lack of star quality talent coming out of our Academy since Harris and Sculthorpe that means we're so desperate to find the next hero that we overrate home grown players. We had loads of hype around Kevin Penny, GO'B, Dec Patton at various stages and they never lived up to it and we thrashed around looking for excuses blaming the coaches but when they left they didn't kick on under other coaches at other clubs either. Recently Riley Dean has become the new anointed one who is carrying all the hope and hype.
If we're honest the only home grown player with real star quality since the 90s was Ben Currie and injury took that away which is a huge shame. The best players we've produced have been Cooper, Wood and Riley. Good players but set against Wigan, Leeds and Saints we're well off the pace.
Toby King was basically a modern version of Jon Roper, he showed promise and had one good year where he was one of the better centres in the league but he never kicked on.
