so Iwas on the ferry from Manly to circular Quay today (



) and noticed an article in the Daily Telegraph over someone's shoulder, all about how greta a start Gaz Ellis had made for Wests Tigers.

In hindsight, has Nobby been vindicated? Would GE for Reardon and Langley have been a good deal.

You may also use this thread to speculate on other deals that never went through, e.g. Paul Sironen in 1994, Mal Meninga, Jeremy Guscott (lot closer than many realise apparently), Brendon Tuuta, Steve Molloy...

Kelly Shelford was another we nearly signed. Then there's Stephen Price who we nearly got before getting big Joe.

Barrie Mac nearly signed for us in 97/98 IIRC.

Going back a bit further to the mid 80s there were stories in the T&A that linked the club with Wally Lewis and Argentine flyhalf Hugo Porta. Accordingg to an interview in Steam Pig with coach Peter Fox he thought this was a con by the board at the time as he knew neither signing was on.

The Ellis deal may have been a good one after all as he's developed into a better player than either Reardon or Langley. However the effect of the deal on team spirit could've been bad. There was some fallout over it and it didn't happen.

Can't believe we were in for Molloy, he was pants.

Would that have been anywhere near the problems caused by the Harris deal though?

We'd have gone for Harris anyway. Noble was convinced that Pryce wasn't a stable option at stand off.

We were linked with Andy Farrell in either 99 or 00, remember reading about it in league express

I think if we could have got the team to play with Shaun Edwards that would have been a good deal.

weren't we linked with alker and sculthorpe once upon a time?

Alker yes. The Sculthorpe stuff was a figment of the imagination of a lot of folk on the old official messageboard I think.

The Danny McGuire signing also never materialised did it?

Danny McGuire

Beat me to it

I'm sure we were linked with Craig Fitzgibbon few years back

Steve Norton.

Vainikolo going to Leeds

. My Leeds friends used to tell me that all the time.


Now it's "Burgess is coming to Leeds, He wants trophies".

Bradford could have signed Kevin Sinfield when Henry Paul left for Union. There was also Brett Kimmorley a few years ago one of the papers said we had signed him.

I'd have liked Kimmorley, but Sinfield would have been scraping the barrel a bit.

With the whole Mick Higham and Terry Newton deal, would you rather have Higham looking back? Newton just doesn't seem to have the heart anymore, although when he can be bothered he can be one of the best in SL.

... and yet it wasn't.

Well it was technically, we did sign them both. So they were actually deals. I'm sure you'll prove me wrong though, you always do

His argument is sort of irrefutable Andrew...? Even if we all know the Higham deal was just a device to allow Stains and Pies to pretend they were not doing business with each other.

Titled edited, happy now?

Thanks. I love how you took the time to change the title. Surprised you didn't put a

or a

in there.

Just heard Keith Woods on the radio saying that he nearly joined the Bulls for a spell in 1997. He was approached on behalf of the club by Robbie Paul, who knew him from his stint at Quins RU. The deal fell through only when Woods was picked for the Lions tour to South Africa.

Interesting to speculate if and how he would have fitted into the 97 squad. Presumably he'd have played back row rather than hooker. Given the timing I wonder if the collapse of the deal was the reason we signed Mike Forshaw? If so, this would probably be our most successful non-signing.