Can't be far away now I assume? Hopefully back for one of the home games coming up ahead of some tough games in May.

Widnes game I believe

We absolutely need Percival back. His brick-wall defence was one of the early highlights of the season.

Shame he's not back on Friday, he always puts in a good performance against Leeds as Ablett would verify.

Definite shades of Paul Newlove with that body swerve. Any defender who lets him get on the outside is finished. He doesn't have Newlove's nimble footwork (he was possibly the most balanced centre I've ever seen. Certainly for a big guy). But if he continues to work on that fend he'll collect tries like a big game hunter collects carcases.

Not sure how big he is. Newlove was a big guy. Fifteen, maybe fifteen six. And I'm not sure he's as tall.

Either way, if he achieves half of what Newlove did we'll reap plenty dividends.

He's pretty tall and he's visibly getting chunkier. I think he'll be a fair prospect in a year's time.
I'm not sure Newlove was [ithat[/i big when he was young, although he was running round for Fev when he was 17.

A lovely centre when he's got the ball in hand, is percy.

Is he your first choice kicker? Im thinking of picking him for my fantasy team when he's back

No. Burns and Walsh would both be ahead of him I reckon. Him and Makinson seemed to be alternating for a few games but Burns has kicked 17 from 20 since he has been our regular kicker so I can't see Percival taking over again when he is back.

Yep I agree on the newlove comparison. I'm not sure he can get to the level of newy but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. He's got all the ability in the world.

We talk of good saints kids coming thru like lomax, tommy, eastmond etc but this kid percy Imo is the best young player we have brought thru in many years.

Nathan Brown really really rates him and I know Souths are very impressed with him.

For me, he's in the top 3 british centres already.

I saw Newlove at seventeen and it was obvious he was going to be a hit from the very beginning. Played a blinder for Fev at Old Trafford.

He wasn't big in comparison to later years. But clearly above average. I think he was about six-one. But I'm not sure.

What a brilliant player Paul Newlove was. I felt for Anthony Sullivan because half the time, Newy didn't need him and would go alone.

Gleeson was another excellent centre, and quite a talent. I would probably compare Percival more to him than I would to Newlove. Percival is going to be very good as long as he can stay fit and away from niggly injuries.

Gleeson had unreal footwork and must have been murder to defend.

I think Percy has the look of newy when he's got the ball. He has the serve like him.

It was always hard to tell how big players really were in those days, because they used to wear those great big baggy-tent shirts, so you could put some chunky 15-stoner in one, and he'd still look like a ten-year-old wearing his dad's jumper.

Not Forgetting RU and the NRL

Cheers

It was more Newlove's [iframe[/i. At 17 he was lanky. But [iwide [/ilanky. He looked like a professional athlete playing in a Featherstone team where average girth was closer to that found in Union. OLD Union (which is ironic because "professional athlete" is not a term usually associated with Newy). Can't remember the name of that dirty great pudding that pulled on a Fev jumper for many years around the time Newlove was breaking into the first team. You couldn't begin to compare the two in terms of physique.

Never seen a player before or since who between tripping and hitting the ground could make thirty yards. He intuitively grasped how best to micro-manage distributing his body weight to gain the maximum advantage. That's not something you could ever begin to teach.

No disgrace that Percy can't match Newy's balance. But he's making a good fist of his body swerve and fend. If he could develop an in-and-out (which I categorise as more drawn out than a side-step but significantly quicker than a swerve) he'd be devastating. Newy's in-and-out was arguably his most dangerous attribute (although his fend was positively fearsome).

Crazy thing with newy, everyone knew what he was going to do and very few could stop him.

Nailed it with that post, mate. When Lyon had the ball, nobody had a clue what he was going to do with it, he was so talented & unpredictable. Yet with Newlove, you could see what he was gonna do but he was still unstoppable with that step, pace and power.

On the other thread it gets mentioned how spoilt we've been with hookers but we've had some fantastic centres too.

Gibbs was a damned fine centre, too. Lacked the athleticism of Newlove. But he was a superb ball player and absolutely brutal in defence.

Newlove had everything. It wasn't just the step off his left. Show him the outside and he'd beat you there with his pace, strength and that right hand fend. Once through, he was gone. If the winger came in, he had the vision and handling to put his winger away instead. Brilliant footwork, speed from a standing start, strength, hands and he was also superb defensively. He was a complete one off and it's unfair comparing Percival to him.

Newlove was a marvel to watch. Oh, how we took him for granted. The one player I'd love to be able to see again.

His daughter Is fit as well

Newlove was that one player we were desperately searching for throughout the late eighties and early nineties. Many a time we put in a good stint against Wigan yet we always lacked that one player who could literally create something out of nothing.

With the arrival of Bomber and his Australian conditioning methods the Newlove transfer gave us the chance we had been waiting for.

Ideally we should have brought him straight from Featherstone. We missed out on a good couple of years of Newlove in his absolute prime.

The price tag was astronomical. But he was worth every penny. And Bradford did very well out of that deal, too. The Newlove transfer bust the league wide open. And boy - it couldn't come a second too soon. Just about everyone was sick to the back teeth of Wigan hoovering up all the talent and putting them on fully pro contracts.

I always say I've never seen a man [iplay his shirt[/i as well as Newy.
Sure, you get players like Cunningham and Sculthorpe who can add big defensive stints and fill controlling roles for their position, but whatever qualities you want from a text book star centre, Newlove had in spades. His biggest fault was that he made it look too easy.

I remember thinking that at the Regal Trophy final in '96. Newlove scored a try which was fairly simple - he powered over from close range with a couple of defenders on him, IIRC - but up until that point we just didn't have players who could just get the job done like that against Wigan. We lost that game, but it somehow felt like a turning point in the club's history, and that's how it panned out.

One indication of Newy's quality was how often his opposition centres ended up getting switched to the other side of the field. He made some people with good reputations look very silly indeed.