Bigredwarrior wrote:
I can’t believe, even with hindsight that anybody would try to say that TL is not a better player than Smith! You talk about his positive attributes but for me he had only 2. His effort and his odd drop goal. His negative attributes on the other hand far outweigh them. He’s slow, has poor passing accuracy, can’t defend, puts most of his kicks straight into the fullback or wingers hands and makes far too many poor decisions.
Leuluai may not have had a great season but I’d rather we had him in the side than Smith every day of the week!
As for players coming back, it says an awful lot about SW and the club that practically every player that leaves wants to come back when the opportunity arises! SW has been hammered on here by some for being a bully and having his favourites but surely they’re not all his favourites and if his bullying reputation is accurate, these lads wouldn’t be coming back.
There was good reason to be positive about every returning player at the time they were brought back and maybe, again with hindsight some haven’t worked out as well as we’d hoped but nobody has a crystal ball and IL, SW and KR are doing the best the can for the club within the salary cap rules. I hope agelling comes back but if he doesn’t, we’re not in a position to get a Greg Inglis or a Gene Miles and Sarginson is probably as good as we could hope for in the modern era.
Funnily enough I don't believe anyone would try to say that TL is not a better player than Smith either. That's why I didn't say it.
What I did say is that Leuluai can't do any of the few things that Smith could do well. Now obviously by the end of his time at Wigan Smith wasn't doing anything particularly well. However, we know what he could do when he was on form. He had one of the best kicking games in Super League. What we needed on top of that to improve was a halfback who had a good kicking game and who was creative. Someone who could play to a structure but make smart plays by reading the game too.
Tommy doesn't offer that. Tommy has never offered that. Sure, at New Zealand Warriors he was a steady player alongside a more creative and dangerous attacking threat (Johnson) just as Smith was for us alongside Williams. Tommy has never been a creative half. He's never really played like a playmaker. When he was with us last he was a runner and played far more like Williams than Smith. And of course there's the issue that Tommy's kicking game is poor and inconsistent and his long kicking game pretty much doesn't exist. So to that extent, Tommy didn't do any of the good things that Smith has done for us in the past.
What benefits have we got from Tommy instead of Smith? Literally every single negative you've put against Smith applies to Leuluai except for poor defence. And there is the only benefit so far - his defence is far superior. If that's all we wanted for improvement we could have put a back row forward in the halves instead.
There are reasons why Tommy has ended up at hooker so often in his career. One of them is that he's never been good enough at halfback to nail it down as his best position. Yes, given the choice between Smith and Leuluai at halfback I'd always choose Leuluai, but I'd rather choose neither.
Perhaps there were reasons to be positive about the players coming back - Joel was quality early in his RL career and was an RU international before injury, Sam was a huge star first time round, Tommy still a NZ international, Budgie one of the most exciting wingers in the comp and Mossop, well, no seriously there's absolutely no common sense or logical reasoning for making that signing. I think he came in the same year Leeds signed Cuthbertson. There never has been and never will be any argument to convince me that bringing Mossop back wasn't just plain stupid.
Taken in isolation you can justify some of the re-signings. However, looking at the bigger picture 0 from 5 have come back as better players, which is something Lenagan stated they would do. So I don't think you could blame anyone for being underwhelmed and pessimistic about the prospects of Sarginson returning, especially after a year out through injury and having no form before that.
