I thought this might be worth a fresh thread. Further to discussions in another thread, I registered on the Rabbitohs forum and asked for their opinions on Big Roy. Some of the replies make for interesting reading. You do not need to register to view the post by the way



[urlhttp://www.rabbitohs.me/warren/showthread.php/4778-Greetings-From-The-UK[/url

I remember Get Down Monkey Man's comment on here when Asotasi was announced; " he's rubbish".

Having a witch hunt is pointless because the damage has now been done, but there are a couple of questions I would be interested in; Is he on a straight 2 year contract, or is it a 1year plus one year club option. Second up, who recommended him to us, and how did he manage to get past the performance videos that we must surely have viewed before agreeing terms ? Without a single positive word on him, something doesn't seem to stack up here.

Aussies at their arrogant best,

i cant get on, what they saying?

"Nobody goes from the NRL to the SL unless
a. they're past it
b. NRL clubs won't touch them for disciplinary/character reasons
c. there's some personal/family reason.

The traffic in great players is entirely in the opposite direction (Burgess brothers, Graham, Tomkins). Sad but true."

Well there is not one positive comment, and the line is very consistent; he is a long way past his best.

I pray he is released after this season.

Article in league weekly today, comments from Tony Smith saying he'sspent first half of the season being 'de programmed' from the nrl thinking of playing percentages and being scared shirtless of making an error in a set of six.

Whereas he's come to an environment where offloads, and passing at the line are encouraged and mistakes of a kind are expected as long as the end product is there.

To be fair the Aussies think any player that goes to Super League is rubbish.

On that forum they also say that they sent us Asotasi as revenge for us sending them Matt King who was poop in their view.

If the internet had been around when we signed Brian Bevan there would have been furious discussions on the internet about how Warrington should start investing in their own youth rather than signing another reserve grader that couldn't even make first grade for the Roosters once.

I can understand why that would initially be a problem, up there are various Aussie forwards doing well without having to be 'undressed' as Asotasi put it.

Well he's got nothing to be scared about here.

If Asotasi starts knocking on and throwing intercepted offloads the Wire fans will say, "no problems chin up mate, we appreciate the effort you are making"

Well the safety first approach of the NRL must be genetically imprinted on Roy, because if you look at his stats he has only managed 4 offloads in 16 games.

But surely the critical factor is the metres he makes ? That is not going to be affected by his switch to SL, and on his figures here, his average gain is the lowest of all our props other than Glen Riley.

Maybe in time Roy will be reprogrammed sufficiently to win this year's Harry Sunderland trophy.

A sobering thought is that our boys out in Oz are now being programmed in the style of NRL & maybe they won't be such good targets for clubs on their return to England ,especially with their broken & battered bodies.

...like Moz?

Yes, Moz only recently started passing the ball.

British forwards, particularly James Graham are starting to change things over there. There will be a lot of convergence over the next couple of years which I hope will benefit us on the interenational stage.

The question I'd ask Roy is, if the approach to free-flowing rugby complete with risk-taking and offloads, is so different here to Australia, why have the Burgess bros., Graham, Cooper etc.slotted straight in over there?

They seem to have adapted to the more conservative NRL style of play and coaching without any prolonged settling in period, so why is it taking him so long?

Anyway, personally I dont want to see him offloading, cos based on his ball handling so far he'd be manna from heaven for the opposition. So let's keep you in your comfort zone Roy, take the ball up first receiver, secure it, run straight and hard, get a quick play the ball and repeat.

Let us know how you get on.

The man is stealing a living on £160,000 a year, could be one of our worst signings

If he can't adapt then at least play his game, play any game other than avoid contact, drop the ball, look disinterested.

After his non performance against Leeds he should be dropped.

Non performance against LEEDS?

He's been non performing since he landed at Manchester.

This was a low point even for ' Big Roy'. 34m gain and two howling handling errors. Difficult to replace a senior prop with an Academy player though so he is pretty safe and dare say he knows it.

Laithwaite out, guess we'll be seeing a lot more of Roy.

Worst news I've heard for a while