My best memory of Appo was when he picked off Jules Oneill's kick at Widnes and went the length of the field. Robert Relf, with his DD's bouncing all over the show was being taunted by Appo as he made an honourable attempt to catch him.

Coincidently, Appo had a fair set of baps himself the following season.

Appo was superb in 2003 for me when Briers was injured, and poor in 2004.
He came back overweight and (possibly) he thought he could rest on his laurels.
Even so I was not impressed with the way we 'got rid' of him at the end of the year.
I'm not on about Johns coming in, I'm on about the club and Lord Hoyle (specificaly for one).
Hoyle bemoaned the fact that we were loosing Dean Gaskell who had one of the lowest tries scored to games played ratios in SL around then, but didn't mention Appo or a couple of others who were leaving.
Having said that I suspect that Appo may not have been a team player and that was also an issue - and one that wouldn't have sat well with TS in todays game.
Then wasn't there also a tax issue? (allegedly)

Stray pass wan't it?

I doubt Appo had endeared himself to either teammates or club staff in his last 2 years especially as he got a good contract after his form in 2003. Nobody on here says Gleeson was treated badly when he moved on, but even in Gleesons last couple of years when he wasn't as good as his first two, he was still a pretty good performer, Appo just became anonymous, the last time he did anything for us was the last game at Wilderspool when he got a hat-trick against Wakey.

Because he didn't keep himself in shape he was always injured in some form in his last couple of years and all he did was hang around on the wing not looking too threatening or bothered what was going on. His career in Australia seemed to show the same pattern, rookie of the year when he started at Canberra, then moved out for disciplinary reasons, went to Adelaide and scored a stack of tries in one season then the club folded, went to the Roosters, lasted one season then got moved on, went to the Cowboys, lasted one season then got moved on, went to Huddersfield (under Tony Smith), spent half a season then moved on to France, then joined us a year later. A succession of clubs were tempted to give him a chance because they knew he was dangerous when he was fully fit, he had Offiah-esque speed, but the end result was always the same. When you compare Appo's attitude to guys like Hicks, King, Hodgson and Monaghan, he is not in the same universe.

It was a bit of freak form from Appo, reminds me of Tomas Gravesen when he played for Everton, average and below for his entire stay at Everton, untill a freak first half to the 2004 season, he was that good he got a move to Real Madrid in the January.

He was brilliant to watch in that last half the the 2003 season though, that step and duck under the arms of the opposion defence and his inevitable gallop for the corner for the 4 points, which became 6. Often against the weaker teams in the league. I do remember him having a brilliant game against Wigan at Wilderspool that season though, he scored a couple I think. We lost narrowly in that game but it was one of the games when he performed against one of the top sides.

Last few memories of Appo were the last league game at Wilderspool against Wakefield, someone in the BB stand had a small banner with 'Please stay, don't go to Saints Appo' on it. It's a real shame he didn't.
The "winning" try against Saints at the HJ, when he went under the sticks, we really thought we'd won it. I'm almost over what happend next.

The one residing memory I have of appo was from the JJB gym all the players used to use...... he was running on a treadmill a few away from me... he then decided he had been on it for long enough.. so he stopped it and started to get off.... the guy in there supervising the training for the club then proceeded to tell him in no uncertain terms to get back on.. to which appo replied "f**k that mate.. im off"..... he just walked out of the room... all the players went silent... apart from Briers who was on an exercise bike, he just started laughing...... all the non rugby playing people in the gym just stood and watched.

looking back i guess that just shows how unprofessional the club was at the time.

Players like Appo, Briers and even Brett Hodgson will be as rare as the Giant Panda in RL soon. Physique will carry greater impact than talent.

graham appo was 150-1 to be super league top try scorer and the start of his purple patch. i got £15 on him at 80-1 as he started to look like he could get there. he was pipped on the last day of the season by dennis moran scoring in london's last game of the season...pretty near the end of the game too, if i remember correctly. cost me £1200 pound that moran try did. thanks den!

he went on to help ruin wigan for a period though, so not all bad.

Ill always remember his try against Hull FC at the HJ Stadium in the last minute when Nathan Wood kicked ahead twice. Anyone else remember this?
Think we won 36-34 ?

He had one last decent game in 2005. Think it was Hull at home IIRC. It was in the middle of that run where won 10 from 11 etc, only losing to a Sean Long drop goal at KR.

Think we beat Hull 36-34 something like that, he scored a couple and I think one was the match winner, it was a sunny day etc, belting game. Think he played halfback too, again if IIRC.

He might have been overweight, unfit etc, but I did feel for him a bit y'know, he played his socks off at stand off, dreamteam and that, then got shunted back to the wing, when clearly he was a player who needed to be in the middle, involved and that. Had he been given the number 6 jersey going into 2004 - he might have been different. He must have felt it was a kick in the teeth like. It was just a shame for him he was behind Lee Briers. My memory isn't great, but I just don't remember him having too many bad games at stand off, they all came when he was marginalised on the wing, fullback etc.

he could've made himself a brett hodgson style fixture at fullback, we didn't see an awful lot of cardiss at one in 2004.

Cullen did the same thing to Grose, played his socks off at fullback, brought in Reardon. Tried to put him elsewhere, shadow of his former self.

I'm not for one minute saying that I'd have left out Briers for Appo, just that I did feel some sympathy for him.he maybe could have done the Brett thing at fullback, but we didn't play like that then.With hindsight, I'd have gone Appo & Briers at halfback, moved Nathan Wood to hooker in a Monas style way, show & go dummy etc.

Was it? You may be right. Great moment though.

Interesting point and one that crossed my mind at the time. He always seemed like a player capable of big things but never quite achieved prior to being with us. Then all of a sudden, he's scoring tries, kicking goals, ripping it up big time and ends up in the SL dream team as the best stand off at the time.

So yeah, its certainly a possibility that he was informed of Cullen's 2004 plans when or before he went home. Then, and purely out of spite, he may have just sat there in the sun, Bacon double cheeseburger in one hand, bottle of VB in another, and conjured up a new Saturated Fat - dependant eating programme for the xmas period.

I do! Thats when we'd 'won' that game about twice already before being pegged back. Great roar when Appo touched down. Great victory. Was part of our 9 wins from 10 was it?

That was a similar game to the Saints one a couple of weeks ago - blew them off the park initially. Hull weren't even in it.

50p - 5p bullethole's all over the ground!!

Would of been world class under Smith

Was he world class at Huddersfield then?

I don't think he was that bothered about being first choice stand off given that he knew Briers was coming back and he spent the off season loafing about and getting out of shape.

Surely if you had ambitions to compete with Lee Briers for a position you would make a better effort than that? The only thing he had over Briers was that he was faster and better at beating players with his footwork, he wasn't a great kicking or organising player, so against weak teams when he had the ball in his hand in the middle of the field he was a try scoring threat. But Appo was never going to be a top line SL stand off, so if that was what he wanted he shouldn't have signed a new deal with us, he could have gone elsewhere to a team that wanted a stand off.

Instead he signed a big contract with us and then just couldn't be bothered any more.

I wonder what would have been said if Appo had been preferred to a fit Briers and then Briers had felt like he was being marginalised, sat on the bench behind a fat ineffective Appo.

Remember bumping into Appo a few years ago on a night out in town, a doorman wouldn't let him into Mr B's as he was a saints fan. I offered to pay for him to get in but he refused so I threatened to contact the company and give them the rundown.

He soon backed down. Wonder where he is now? Maybe someone should get that annoying hippy Justin Lee Collins to see if he can track him down, like he did with the original A-Team cast.

the irony to that being, briers came back in 04 overweight as well.

I'll never get out my head some bloke in the crowd in an off the cuff comment

"Appo? F@~k&*g Crappo more like"

You were the last person I thought would bite