Matt rodwell, speaks https://www.newcastleknights.com.au/new ... ed-my-car/

Matt rodwell, speaks https://www.newcastleknights.com.au/new ... ed-my-car/

If he's talking about the London game, I was part of the "mob". albeit observing rather than dishing out.

We were soundly beaten, and me and my mates sat on the terraces with many others having a sit in protest. After 15 minutes or so we moved to the entrance at the back of the main stand. I remember seeing Matt and his wife coming out and he got plenty of verbal stick, and I saw someone throw a plastic bottle top that hit his wife on her coat. I didn't see what happened on the car park.

I felt really sorry for them as I attended the players shirt presentation, pre season I overheard his wife telling someone how excited they were to be experiencing a different country. I can't remember the result but at his final game which was at Wilderspool, he bravely walked around the pitch clapping in front of the home fans. I would say 80% applauded him back and a few were still giving him abuse.

There was a thread on this forum at the time generally saying that people were sorry it didn't work out and wishing him all the best. I hope he read them. The real problem was the coach at the time.

Rodwell seemed like a good guy. What I never understood was that of all the imports we have had over the years, Rodwell copped the most vicious abuse. I didn't see what happened in the car park but remember being in the Fletcher End in some of those early season games and the mood against Rodwell in the crowd was vicious. You always got 'robust views' in there and in pondlife corner but usually it was cynical wise cracks, but with Rodwell there was raging hate.

You even saw it for years after on this forum if there was a thread about worst signing, Rodwell would be up there with Currier. I never understood why he warranted that.

He didn't come over as a big name signing and I doubt he was on an executive salary. He hadn't played for one of our rivals before (probably most fans hadn't heard of him before we signed him). He hadn't said anything in the press to slag the fans off.

Also he wasn't even [ithat[/i bad on the field. The other new halfback Tommy O'Reilly looked way more out of his depth. Rodwell wasn't knocking on or throwing interceptions or kicking out on the full. He was just a Tyrone Roberts type who shuffled the ball around from side to side and didn't offer anything game breaking. I remember going to the Hull away game shortly before he left, and he did play well in that game.

The only explanation I can come up with was that Rodwell made himself accessible by coming on the official club site forum and was posting threads and engaging with fans. It opened the door between him and fans. Nowadays they all do this on twitter, but back then it was unusual. There was a lot of pent up anger at the time about how the club was run. I think a lot of it was against the new regime with Steve Anderson, who had made some odd statements in the press about how we were going to use the flat passing system that Melbourne Storm had with Brett Kimmorley and how it would look terrible for the first half of the season, and we'd gone light on conditioning so that we would have "gallons in the tank" come the end of the season - but we just started the season totally unfit. He also moved Lee Briers to fullback and was playing Lee Penny at centre and wing, which created an image of an Aussie coach with unusual ideas that weren't going to work with us. Rodwell was maybe seen as "Anderson's man" who he had brought out of retirement (when he was carrying an injury too) to be our captain, and so once he made himself accessible to the fans he became the lightning conductor for all that anger.

If he hadn't have been posting on wolfweb, Rodwell would probably just been largely forgotten alongside O'Reilly, Marquet, Felton, Laughton and various other Anderson signings who had the benefit of anonymity in a sea of poop that year. But once he opened that door to being accessible he opened Pandora's Box.

That whole 2002 season was a strange one for fan behaviour. There was the Rodwell stuff, and there were a number of unsavoury incidents that season: after away games there were a lot of reports of incidents from Wire fans and for a few games there was that spate of claims of cars being scratched with keys. There was a weird cultish hero-worship for Tommy O'Reilly after a while, and then that business about trying to set up donation buckets to pay the transfer fee to bring loanee Danny Halliwell in permanently as a saviour. It was like some kind of hysteria had come over the fan base. The arrival of Cullen as coach seemed to settle everyone down.

No player or players family should suffer or have suffered that level of abuse.
Those involved should have hung their heads in shame.

I agree with Sally C, it's when fans read and believe things like this, then it gets their back up more when results don't follow: https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/ne ... attle-cry/ It becomes a bit the the TS soundbites of "we trained well all week..." after another demoralising display.

I agree with Sally C, it's when fans read and believe things like this, then it gets their back up more when results don't follow: https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/ne ... attle-cry/ It becomes a bit the the TS soundbites of "we trained well all week..." after another demoralising display.

One word.. .. society.

I don't remember him being bad, just bang average.
I don't know what the fans were expecting, though. You look at the calibre of signings we made that year in sally's list, added to what we already had on the playing roster, and compare that to the names we'd lost at the back end of '01, what were we expecting?
We basically had a side of people who could play rugby to a certain standard.
I've said this before, 84/5, 97and 02 are the low points for me. Hopefully, we're a long way from seeing them again.

Isn't that around the time Matt Sturm arrived for about a 5 year deal ?

Quote ="shinymcshine"I agree with Sally C, it's when fans read and believe things like this, then it gets their back up more when results don't follow: https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/ne ... attle-cry/ '" If you look at Rodwell's quotes, and ignore the "captain's battle cry" headline put on by the Guardian, Rodwell was sounding a lot more reasonable/realistic than most of our signings... "Warrington fans should expect the team to go on the field and attempt to be consistent" "If we can be consistent over 28 rounds then surely we must be looking at the 5th/6th spot mark" "While teams don't want to talk up their chances, you've got to aim for something and if you're not aiming for a semi-finals (play-offs) spot then you shouldn't be playing." "Sure, there will be times when things don't go our way and we might be beaten by a large score but sometimes that's not because the team isn't putting in 100 per cent. There are a lot of other different factors that go on in a Rugby League game that can affect the scoreline but the thing we're striving for is consistency" It sounds like he was trying to be realistic but at least give some hope. Now maybe his true thoughts at the time were, "in my career I have never seen a squad so bereft of talent and creativity as this bunch of wasters....I hope the rest of Super League is crap else we're in a relegation fight for sure" but if he'd have said that people would have pasted him for being too negative...

Quote ="shinymcshine"I agree with Sally C, it's when fans read and believe things like this, then it gets their back up more when results don't follow: https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/ne ... attle-cry/ '" If you look at Rodwell's quotes, and ignore the "captain's battle cry" headline put on by the Guardian, Rodwell was sounding a lot more reasonable/realistic than most of our signings... "Warrington fans should expect the team to go on the field and attempt to be consistent" "If we can be consistent over 28 rounds then surely we must be looking at the 5th/6th spot mark" "While teams don't want to talk up their chances, you've got to aim for something and if you're not aiming for a semi-finals (play-offs) spot then you shouldn't be playing." "Sure, there will be times when things don't go our way and we might be beaten by a large score but sometimes that's not because the team isn't putting in 100 per cent. There are a lot of other different factors that go on in a Rugby League game that can affect the scoreline but the thing we're striving for is consistency" It sounds like he was trying to be realistic but at least give some hope. Now maybe his true thoughts at the time were, "in my career I have never seen a squad so bereft of talent and creativity as this bunch of wasters....I hope the rest of Super League is crap else we're in a relegation fight for sure" but if he'd have said that people would have pasted him for being too negative...

I don't disagree, problem was the open dialogue via WG or Forum meant supporters had a right of reply / holding to account (which some people unfortunately took a way bit too far).

my group still joke about the matt sturm deal, 20 years or for life, whichever is longest, it was like willy wonka's golden ticket.

Matt Sturm had a 3 year deal. He hardly played.

I think Sturm fit in to the same class of player as Warren Stevens, who also (re)signed for us in 2002, after Cullen took over as a player who would get rated as one of the top performers in his position in the Championship, but wouldn't make an impact in SL.

3 years seemed a strangely long deal to give Sturm at the time. He'd had a run in SL with Hudds a few years earlier, and all the reports coming out of the Championship were very positive, great engine, great work rate, seemed to be a machine at that level. He lacked size though which was probably more of an issue in SL.

When we signed Matt Davis, I feared that he might end up in the Sturm category but he's done OK so far.

I'd talked myself in to believing some of the Anderson hype. It was his background, assistant coach to Melbourne Storm and the Aussie national team, I wondered if he was going to be one of those Aussie assistants who comes over here and does well, like McRae, Elliot and Raper. Also Plange had won the Championship with Hunslet a couple of years earlier.

The alarm bells were ringing with our signings though - especially given the departure of Langer, Nikau, Kohe-Love, Hunte and Sibbit - we suddenly became very pedestrian. I heard a story a while later that when Anderson got the job, he'd planned to bring Darren Britt over as the big signing, but the board gave him a very tight budget so he lost Britt to Saints and ended up taking punts on players who had been previously related as hot talents but who had lost their way and had question marks over their attitude/confidence/fitness: Dale Cardoza, Leroy Rivett, Craig Weston, Nick Fozzard. The only one which worked out was Fozzard, who after multiple years ravaged by injury finally stayed fit and proved to be a superb prop.

Anderson was also making positive sounding statements about saying the Aussie way was to focus on developing youth, and he talked up Steve Maden and John Hill and gave them a chance, but they were just out of their depth at SL level. Same happened with Leon Felton. He'd been on the Canterbury Bulldogs youth team and Ian Millward had given him a trial at Saints. I remember hoping we had discovered some blue chip Aussie youngster. Instead we got a skinny kid in a scrum cap who looked scared and out of his depth in the professional game.

It became clear really early that season that we were way way short on talent, and after Anderson was replaced by Plange, the board released funds which perhaps if had been available in the off season might have meant we had a more credible squad. Plange did spend it well, bringing in Westwood, Nat Wood, Appo and the loan signings of Halliwell and Mathers. But the squad overall was just too weak to work with.

I felt like Plange got a rough deal walking into a bad situation with us. He came across as an intelligent and charismatic guy who had a good eye for a player and was good at doing business but that season with us ended his coaching career and he left the game and pursued a couple of business ideas and became a pilot. Seems to have done well for himself. Possibly a loss to rugby league though.

Can't say I blame Rodwell for going home, he and his family didn't deserve that treatment.

Really interesting reading this, the first three all ended up at Doncaster at some point later. Craig Weston is one of my favourite imports to play for the Dons.

On his list of clubs it looks bizarre him ever being with us.

Huddersfield 1998-99
Workington Town 2000-01
Warrington 2002-04
Leigh 2005
Rochdale Hornets 2006

Used far too many players in 1997, 2001 and 2002.

1997 - 43 players
2001 - 40 players (I remember that Anderson got a lot of players in on trial, who just weren't SL standard)
2002 - 37 players

In 2003 it dropped to 25 players. The highest we've gone to since is 2017 with 32 players.

Used 30 players last year, and 5 of those only had 1 or 2 games.

Rodwell was injured and probably too much was expected of him, it's a hard act to follow Alfie Langer. With some of the poor quality we had you needed a player like Alfie to drag the standard up. I remember Wolfweb at the time and he did make himself far too accessible.

An interesting list for the 2003 squad and those incoming & outgoing players: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 816273.stm

An interesting list for the 2003 squad and those incoming & outgoing players: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 816273.stm

Quote ="shinymcshine"An interesting list for the 2003 squad and those incoming & outgoing players: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 816273.stm'" Nicky Wire is a Warrington fan?

Quote ="shinymcshine"An interesting list for the 2003 squad and those incoming & outgoing players: news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_l ... 816273.stm'" Nicky Wire is a Warrington fan?

Not a bad squad in 2003

I don't know if I've deliberately eradicated d '02 from my memory (I missed a fair few home games that season, due to a job change/shift patterns), but some of the names that Sally has brought up, are just that.... names.
O' Reilly
Halliwell
Carouthers
Scott Wilson???
Sturm...
I mean, I was a season ticket holder from 83 onwards (for the next 20 odd years) and I could give a brief synopses of most players we've had since then, where they played, if they were any good, what era etc (providing they'd played a few times), but huge chunks of that 02 squad have just been wiped from my mind.
I remember the comedy value of Paul "I can crush tennis balls in my bare hands" Marquette (just for that quote).

Sturm?????? No. I'm lost.

I wouldn't know them, if I fell over them in the street.

Didn't we also have Simon Gillies at that time, if my addled brain isn't playing tricks on me. SoO experience. That was a laugh. They MUST have been desperate, Down Under, if HE got to that level.

Fill us in, Sally. I'm definitely at a loss (a bit like that team)

Scott wilson and gillies were 99

matt sturm was a backrow/prop from huddersfield, didn't make many appearances i think got farmed back out to huddersfield on loan his last year iirc.

we actually signed a lot of the huddersfield team that got relegated, cardoza, fozzard, laughton, livett(think he was there)

Kevin crouthers i think we got from wakey, he was one of the many splurge buys that bradford did when they became the bulls that never stuck a first team place. i didn't think he was too bad, didn't play much.

O'reilly had previously played at chorley, i think.

Danny halliwell we got in on loan from halifax, late on in the year, he scored a fair few tries and was a bright spark as sally said in a show of a season, there's still a guy that stands in the southstand that wears his 02 shirt with halliwell 28 on the back.

Cheers, FMC

How did they do for Doncaster?

I was quite open-minded when we signed them. Cardoza had been a figure of fun at Huddersfield, but when we played them a year or so before (and they beat us) I remember being surprised at how impressive an athlete he looked, he was built like a tank and fast too. Plange said at a supporters event after he was released mid-season that he just didn't have the focus to be a full-time player and was better suited to the part-time lifestyle where he could enjoy himself away from the field more and still enjoy a rugby career.

Rivett - fast but his confidence had been damaged after that Murrayfield Cup Final when Bradford attacked him with kicks. Scored one try for us when he streaked away then disappeared.

Weston - I remember him being touted in the Aussie rugby league annuals as a superstar youngster in the 1990s but he spent much of his career in the Championship in the UK. You would get these players like him and Cliff Beverley who would dominate the Championship and then just be so-so in Super League, maybe they lacked elite talent or maybe they struggled because of playing for weak teams when they were in SL.

Us signing Weston from Widnes was a bit of a saga. Widnes had just got promoted and we'd agreed to take their coach Neil Kelly to replace Van de Velde. Then Kelly backtracked and re-signed for Widnes, which they saw as a bit of a coup and were crowing about, before we then signed one of their best players from their promotion season in Weston. Then suddenly Weston was released by mutual consent and re-signed with Widnes. The official story was that Anderson was insisting players relocated to the local area and didn't like Weston commuting in from Yorkshire, but there were a lot of rumours kicking round at the time that Warrington had financial problems and would be struggling to pay wages so it was a cost-cutting measure.

In the end Weston didn't set SL on fire, but he would have been better than O'Reilly.

I have that brain fug for around 96-98, I realised that on the memories of 1997 thread. Although through the 1990s I was obsessional about RL, there were so many comings and goings at the time that I lose track of who signed for us when. I remember Paul Hulme joining us but can't remember exactly what point or whether he was hooker or back row or even if he played much. My memory is much sharper about the Brian Johnson era than the Dorahy era.

Would be a good quiz question this one, players from Huddersfield teams that finished bottom that ended up at Warrington.

I count 9. In addition to the 5 Cat says (assuming Livett is meant to be Rivett), there was

Craig Weston
Dean Hanger
Martin Gleeson
Graham Appo

10, if you count Chris Bridge, who was in Huddersfield's Academy but hadn't played in the first team and got picked up by Bradford when they got relegated.

Richard Marshall also played for Hudds at that time, and ended up on our coaching staff.

Tony Smith was their coach in the final of their 4 wooden spoon seasons, when they actually got relegated.

Dale Cardoza & Leroy Rivett both arrived at Doncaster in 2002. I know Rivett was on loan from Wire, it's possible Cardoza was too although I'm far from certain.

Rivett had just been to Chorley on loan before joining the Dons and only played 4 times for us without scoring. I believe we are the only club he played for and didn't score.

Cardoza had a good strike rate scoring 4 tries in 7 appearances. He would later re-sign for the Club in 2005, again scoring 4 tries, this time in 10 games. He did seem to have perhaps more to offer but as per the comments in your post, you were left wondering if off-field issues prevented that.

Now here's the twist in the tale ... Craig Weston broke the Dons try-scoring record in 2000 as well as being first choice goalkicker. He left during the 2001 season to join Widnes ... so it was the other way round in his case (my bad) ...

At one time nicknamed The Prince (a suggestion he would be the successor to Wally Lewis) it never really happened for him but he is well thought of here in Doncaster.