Big call here, but Gregory's departure to Wigan, for me, was the difference between Wigan, and not us, becoming the power of the late 80's, early 90's.

Gregory was the final piece in the Wigan jigsaw. We had more or less completed our jigsaw until Gregory smashed it to pieces.

That Wire side of November/December 1986 was the best RL club side I've ever seen. The 13 try demolition of Leeds at Headingley was the most complete RL performance I have ever witnessed (well, apart from Paul Bishop's lousy kicking!).

Gregory's departure left arguably the biggest what if in our history. The sight of him running the game behind THAT pack was probably perfect RL.

Good shout I collared Gregory at a Sportsman's Dinner not that long after he'd hung up his boots and said as much. He said that his departure wasn't as simple as we all thought....yeah yadder yadder yadder

Johnno
Dessie
J Davies
Blake
J Bevan
Woods
A Gregg
Sir les
Monas
Mozza
Roberts
Westwood
Mike greg

Sub's
K Kelly
Solomons
King
Hodgson

Very difficult to do.may throw in a reserve team.so many characters that were a joy to watch and there was never a dull moment..

Again, hard to disagree with a word of that, DSM
THAT game was one of the few (localish) away games I missed, that year. I remember the Radio Leeds commentator (obviously a Yarkshiremon) describing it as the "finest British team performance in any sport, that I've ever seen".
Luckily, I have seen the full game on video, and one word sums it up....pornography. We'd've given the touring Australians a game, that day (they were touring at the time, AMAZINGLY, we didn't get a game, despite us winning the Prem, a few months before)

That Gregory (A) partnership with Roberts was a joy to behold. Great days

Anywhere I could see that Leeds match? A bit of joy wouldn’t go amiss!

This is getting a bit spooky, exactly my thoughts on Parry Gordon, up there as one of my favourite ever players, nothing flashy but totally dedicated to the team, don’t think I ever saw him give a less than 8/10 performance.

I'm sure the tries are available on YouTube, CH.
Brendan (Douglas????) has some videos on Facebook (although I could be wrong)

It's on You Tube mate. I watched it last week, a bit grainy but Roberts is still just as quick as we remembered.

The overriding memory from that match was that by the fifth or sixth try, the Leeds fans were openly applauding the quality of Wire's play. Mind you, by the ninth or tenth it had also been joined by calls for their coaches' head, which, if I recall correctly they got a couple of days later.

That short period at the end of 1986 was sheer RL heaven. I seem to remember us ripping a few good sides apart. Unfortunately, Gregory leaving killed us, despite a short cameo from a veteran Ken Kelly (someone who doesn't get mentioned enough in these 'best of' threads).

Can you imagine if we had kept Gregory, and added Woods and Drummond, as we later did?... That would have been beyond a dream.

Although he wasn't in gregorys class, losing Keith Holden to a career ending injury at such a young age hurt as well. He looked to be forming an excellent partnership with woods. Those 2 playing behind our pack would've given Wigan a run for their money in the late 80s.

This

K Kelly was class for us, Holden as said held so much promise...”what ifs” can be killers.

Even though Andy Gregory was a top notch scrum half, I never felt he was a committed Warrington player. So, for me the No7 shirt goes to Parry Gordon. Alongside him at No6 would be Bobby Fulton who edges it over Alex Murphy as Alex was just past his best whereas Bobby was in his prime during his short spell with the Wire.

I never saw Fulton play but my opinion of A Murphy as player/coach was the emphasis was on “coach”.

Correct about Andy Gregory. I remember Clarrie Owen telling me that when team went to get measured for team blazers, Andy's misses said out loud, "I don't know why you're bothering getting measured, you won't be here long.

The only player in my Pooh house threshold was Andy Currier. Andy Gregory was a class player...just disappointed with him.

Sometimes it's difficult to appreciate how good a player is when hes playing for the opposition. I was certainly guilty of that whilst Murphy was at St Helen's & Leigh. However, when he played for the Wire it became obvious that he had an amazing kicking & passing game and was very quick off the mark. The trouble was he played an aggressive game and liked to mix it with the forwards and sadly, the years of punishment caught up with him.

I’m ashamed to admit this was me with Jiffy!

1. Brent Grose
2. Chris Hicks
3. Martin Gleeson
4. Chris Bridge
5. Joel Monaghan
6. Lee Briers
7. Chris Sandow
8. Chris Hill
9. Michael Monaghan
10. Adrian Morley
11. Louis Anderson
12. Ben Westwood
13. Simon Grix

14. Daryl Clark
15. Ben Harrison
16. Gareth Carvell
17. David Solomona

These are my favourite players that i actually saw play, and this would be the best squad in my opinion based on what i saw. I fell in love with Rugby league about 8 Games in to 2005 when i went to my first game and immediately found my sport as apart from Boxing i wasn't in to any other sport. Gutted i never got to see some of the players other people have named, i bet it was awesome

Hodgson
Monaghan
Gleeson
Davies
Hicks
Briers
Johns
Morley
Monaghan
Boyd
Westwood
Currie (pre-injury)
Gregory

Clark
Carvell
Hill
Solomona

1. Brett Hodgson
2. Des Drummond
3. Allan Bateman
4. Jonathan Davies
5. John Bevan
6.Bobby Fulton
7.Andy Gregory
8. Adrian Morley
9.Daryl Clark
10. Les Boyd
11. Tommy Martyn
12. Mark Roberts
13.Mike Gregory

14. Michael Monaghan
15. Mike Nicholas
16. Bob Jackson
17. John Woods

1. Brian Johnson
2. Des Drummond
3. Allan Bateman
4. Jonathan Davies
5. John Bevan
6. John Woods
7. Lee Briers
8. Les Boyd
9. Daryl Clark
10. Adrian Morley
11. Mark Roberts
12. Ben Westwood
13. Mike Gregory

14. Paul Sculthorpe
15. Ieystn Harris
16. Chris Hill
17. Michael Monaghan

Definitive. Give up everyone, competition over.

1. Brian Johnson
2. Des Drummond
3. Allan Bateman
4. Jonathan Davies
5. Chris hicks
6. Andy gregory
7. Lee Briers
8. Les Boyd
9. Daryl Clark
10. Adrian Morley
11. Mark Roberts
12. Bob jackson
13. Mike Gregory

14. Paul Sculthorpe
15. Ieystn Harris
16. Steve roach
17. Les davidson

I see most people have Drummond in their team. I put Hicks and Joel Monaghan in over him, a bit controversially. Dessie was a better athlete, in terms of his speed and acceleration, than either of them. JM was not in the same league as Dessie for athleticism. So why go JM ahead of him?

I had two question marks over Des.

First was, he could be a bit prone to errors. He wasn't the best under the high ball, and I think rival teams didn't exploit it as much as they would against others, probably out of respect/fear for Dessie and maybe they thought if you bomb him from distance and he takes it cleanly there could be trouble on if he had open space in front of him to build up speed. Also he did knock on sometimes, again out of respect for Des he didn't get the usual groans and moans that other players would have got from the Fletcher St End, it was just an awkward sigh.

Second was, considering Dessie's abilities, he never seemed to score that many tries. He scored some great ones for sure, and when the ball was working its way out to his side of the field you felt that only a small overlap needed to be on and he would burn off any defender round the outside. But he was less prolific than Forster and Tony Thorniley, who didn't have Dessie's physical gifts, in the years I saw him.

Admittedly I only saw his last couple of seasons, and maybe he was on the decline then and he was better when he first signed from Leigh, which others who have him in their all time teams saw.

And there lays the "problem" with Drummond, in your last paragraph, Sally.
In the last season or two, he became a bit accident prone, but, as I remember it, he [udid[/u receive a fair bit of flak from the [ifaithful [/i, with plenty of "oh, FFS Dessie" heard. His game then resembled that poor season that Westwood had, a couple of years back, when BWs game consisted of knock ons, penalties, and just generally being a shadow of the man he was.... when he wasn't suspended.

Bar Offiah (who had fantastic pace, and an EXTREMELY underrated centre in Darren Wright, inside him) Drummond is the best British winger I've seen. You should have seen him, when he was at Leigh.
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And the noise that the Hilton Park speccies used to make whenever the ball was near him, was DEAFENING.

You got DD's career, in the same way I saw Mike Nicholas' last games for us, as a young 11 year old, when I first started watching. Everyone saw a club legend, I just saw an old bloke making lots of mistakes

It happens to the best of 'em.