Mackey was a better all rounder.

Mackey, far better player.

mackey was the better player, but nat wood has to be my all time favourite player. his speech when he left was so emotional for him and the club. a true warrington legend: Nat Wood!

Never in a million years can the word "legend" be used to describe Nathan Wood! He had commitment and played with passion, but is miles from a legend. In fact, the only player that I regard as a Warrington "legend" in the past 10 years is Lee Briers.

Mackay....although Nat would win a fight

Jamie Bloem

in my eyes nat wood is a legend because of the passion he put in and obviously felt for the club and us the fans.

In spite of trying to negotiate a contract with Wigan? Lots of other players have stayed a lot longer than Nathan Wood and shown the same amount of passion. Average player with a big heart.

Can't agree with the average bit but the passion was certainly there. I think we had an inquiry from Wigan but didn't he decide he wanted to stay?

Greg Mackey, by a country mile.
When he played his last game for us in 89/90, we were playing great rugby, joint top of the league and had just won the Lancs Cup. By the end of the season, we'd just scraped a Premiership place (8th).
When he returned, Mackey was playing behind a pack in transition (and some of them not very good), yet he (with the help of Kelly Shelford-genius and some Welsh geezer) steered us to almost win the title.

Wood (who's commitment could never be questioned) was a good player, but at times, you needed a crow-bar to get the ball out of his hands, which for a half back, is not a plus point.

I thought that Wigan backed out at the last minute

Come on then, Sal, you started the debate, where do you stand

I remember hearing a good rumour at the time Nat Wood was in talks with Wigan, that the reason we were letting him talk to them was to open up a quota spot because Simon Moran was trying to get Brad Fittler to join us for 2005 (he had just retired after the 2004 Grand Final in Aus and we wanted him to do a season with us). Fittler decided in the end that he'd mentally set himself up for retiring so didn't want to come round and go through the motions in England, so he didn't come. It wasn't a rumour that was on the internet, I got it off somebody pretty well connected, maybe it was false but you never know, we signed Andrew Johns later that year so Simon Moran was obviously thinking in those terms.

Back on Mackey v Nat Wood, I rate Mackey a better player in terms of ability and them on about a par in terms of toughness but Nat Wood could do stuff that Mackey couldn't, in terms of causing damage with the ball in hand and coming up with big plays in close games. A lot of our most memorable wins in 2002-05 would have Wood having done something big when the game was in the balance.

Something else I always noticed about Wood was how his ability to make breaks and beat players was very good in proportion to his speed. He wasn't slow but at the age we had him I wouldn't say he was gifted with great pace, not enough to be making the long range breaks and scoring from distance like he did. I remember him leaving good defenders like Gary Connolly and Kris Radlinski on their backsides.

It would have been interesting to see how Nat Wood would have gone in England if he'd come over at a young age like say Dunemann did, Wood was in Australia for 10 years and played a lot of games but he was at clubs where he was understudy to Adrian Lam and Stacey Jones etc so he was a bench player. If he'd have come over to England in the mid 1990s rather than 2001, I reckon he would have been at one of the top teams before long and probably won trophies.

Greg Mackey was a class act, remember guys like Kelly Shelford and Kevin Ellis running off him, when he was in the team, we seemed to have more co-ordination on the field, and had a tighter knit team spirit, than any time afterwards since he left until the last couple of years. Also can you ever remember Mackey being injured or suspended? He was in the team sheet every week when I was a kid.

Greg Mackey was made of steel, what was his record of consecutive games?

For me no argument - Greg Mackey.

Mainly for the reasons Lefty states in that he took us above the level of the team. He had definitely lost a yard of pace when he returned for the 2nd time but for the 1st time he was a revelation. I remember him scoring a great try to win the 1st game of the season against Wigan at CP.

It was only the ineptitude of the management in messing around in giving him a long-term contract that meant he left. I always wonder what would have happened if he'd stayed that season.

Great player and after Andy Greg, the best scrum half I've ever seen in the 25 years I've been watching the Wire. For game in, game out consistency he was brilliant.

Was you away on one of your Space Shuttle missions when Alfie signed for us ?

To answer the original question, Greg Mackey by a long way.

What a game that was at the Pie Dome. Nobody gave us a chance, Wigan were beginning to look dominant, and it was Monie's first (official) game in charge, and in that second half we just blew them away. Mackey had just come over looking for a club, we had Mark Roskell who was very underrrated, who had a blinder.
Ahh memories, I've still got very brief (Granada Reports) highlights of this game on tape. Always like to dig it out for a few mins of nostalgia.

You're bang on Chiswick, with your comment about the ineptitude of the management re his contract. I still say we'd have run Wigan close, if not beaten them to the title that season, if we'd have offered Mackey what he wanted. This was one of my FEW gripes about the Higham era

Mackey was brilliant for the Wire but he also helped Hull win the Premiership at OT against what was an excellent Widnes side. I still remember Chariots marding off at the end of that game in a sulk and then toddled off to Wigan. Stood in the Stretford End with all the cod ed fans, top afternoon out that one

Never had the pleasure of watching Greg Mackey but have heard a lot of people mention him.

Nat Wood wasnt a scrum half , he was a player who liked to have ball in hand and to run and fight - as has been said already, he's was a hooker. He also couldn't hit a barn door with a cows . His kicking game was shocking.

That said, he was easily one of our best players in the years he played for us.

their two styles couldnt be more different, Mackey was a Rob Burrow type playmaker constantly running along the line looking for willing runners and finding them with long/short passes.

At times though Mackey would often look bad because if we didnt have those runners he had no other game he was too small to take the line on ...he had the bottle to do it no question but it just wasnt productive...

where as Nat Wood had that ability he could take the line on anywhere on the park and make a break. however he lacked the patience to do the simple stuff.

what Nat wood brought to the side though was confidence he was out injured for a spell and on his return to action against Bradford at the HJ the first touch of the ball was a one handed pick up from dummy half on our own 20 followed by a great break it just exuded confidence that seemed to lift the whole team and we went on to beat a decent Bradford side.

Nat Wood for me

Wood had all the off-the-cuff skills that you like to know people have got in their locker but Mckay was an organiser, a real pro scrum half. That was a real workman like Hull side that he led to Premiership glory.

To answer Rob Wire.

No I wasn't but based on their relative performances for us (I accept that with Langer in his pomp there'd be no contest) but as I say for game in, game out consistency and lifting the team and for what he did for the Wire in his time at the club I'd say Mackey did more and was a better player for us.

I was also there that day; 18-6 if I remember correctly, Mackey was brilliant in an outstanding team performace.

Mackey by a country mile, although Wood and Westwood's transfer arguably kept us up that season

Ive got to say thats an absolute no way....a Retired Alan Langer that decided to come out of retirement was better than Greg Mackey in his prime in fact he was still queenslands best Scrum half...Langer did things Wire fans hadnt seen before and havent seen since...

Mackey was a great pro but his run of consecutive appearances cannot be mistaken for class......

I agree with biscuit on this one, when it comes to Mackey, or Wood, v Langer, then Langer was a fair bit ahead of both of them. Langer's first season he was incredibly consistent...I reckon he should have got MoS ahead of Sean Long that year. In his second year maybe slightly less consistent although he had quite a few man of the match games where we beat top sides, and in that second year he was still good enough to go back to play State of Origin in Australia.

What Langer brought, that I have never seen from a Wire side before or since, was pretty much a guarantee that if we were inside 15 yards from the opposition line, we were going over in that set of six. We are pretty good at that now because Monaghan causes trouble from this distance, but when Langer was there, he would either put McCurrie in for a crashover try, or inside ball to Penny/Hunte, or a grubber kick was going in and someone (often Langer himself) was going over, or he would just dummy and go over. Defenders even from the top sides were paralysed by Langer because they knew he had so many options so they hung off him.

Our defence in 2000-01 was shocking but it was still entertaining watching Wire and you always felt we were in the game because if we could just go up that end of the field Langer would have us over. If we had Langer of 2000 form, in our current side, I have no doubt we would finish top of the league next year.

I remember Shaun McRae doing some analysis on this when he was in the Sky studio, and Stevo had been discussing how he couldn't understand why Darryl Van de Velde was still Warrington coach and going through all our failings....and McRae basically said, yes Stevo, but what Warrington can do is finish off plays, with Langer and Briers, there's no better team in the league at finishing attacking plays off.