Rather have patton

sounds like you were in there a bit too much as well

Nat Wood was limited in a way that he wasn't an organising/kicking halfback but we had Briers anyway. He was a running halfback who would take on the line and make breaks. He was better at that than Myler who was faster, but whose pace was more useful as a support runner whereas NW would beat people with his footwork. Blake Austin is similar but NW was better.

Going back to my point before about Sullivan not really doing it for me as hooker....NW was a player who you could put as hooker and be effective, even if he wasn't as good as Mick Higham there, he had the physical toughness and rugby brain to be effective there.

I think he would have to be in my top 4 or 5 Wire players of all time and he made watching the team more enjoyable. His departure was a real dividing line in the Cullen era. Before that point, Cullen was popular, the team felt together, it felt like an exciting new era and a good time to watch Wire. After he left, the fans became more divided over Cullen and frustrated at the team. A lot of the heart and spirit of the Cullen team died when NW left.

Fare observation about Cullen releasing Nat Wood, Wood was respectful but vocal about it and didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t as if we had a cap issue either, we were well below that. He had said he would be back in a minutes notice following his release if required. Wether he meant it or was tongue in cheek, I’m not quite sure.

The Wigan “episode” probably didn’t do Nat many favours.

Nat Wood was 33 and also had had a lot of injuries. After we signed Sullivan and told him we weren't renewing his contract he retired, rather than try to find a contract elsewhere.

With hindsight we should have offered him an extra year instead of signing Sullivan but moving to a younger player made sense at the time, we just signed the wrong player.

It was a bit like keeping Appo rather than Domic when we had to reduce the overseas quota. You could see the logic at the time, with Appo being in the SL dream team, but that was another one we got wrong with hindsight and unlike Wood, Domic carried on for three or four more years as a fine SL player.