who would you rather have in the P&B no.1 jersey...?

Lee Penny hands down!

Say one thing bout Lee Penny he didnt drop much ball,there again he never passed much ball!!!!
On back slapping and shear will to win or succseed,i would have to say mathers far better team player and he could read the game better!neither was blessed with the greatest of pace neither were stand out players for warrington!!Not many on here will remember Lee penny in fact i am suprised no-one has said dont you mean Kev Penny !!Not going to call either player as they have played the game at a level that i hav nt..
i would say mathers just by a whisker going on that performance in the 2010 cc,its a petty that he saved his best game for warrington as his last!!!

Lee Penny . With his Four tries against Leeds.

Lee Penny looked the real deal when he broke through into the first team. I thought he was actually quite quick but I think he lacked vision and creativilty although was pretty solid in defence as I recall with great upper body strength.

Mathers has (despite what Wigan fans might think) a pretty good rugby brain, its just he had his 'moments' and they were normally high profile howlers (like the one at the DW with his forward roll over the ball), but as someone else pointed out, he is a good team player. He also put out some pretty good cut-out passes that led to tries.

In my ideal world neither would feature as an automatic first choice but both gave us good service for different reasons. On balance, I think I would pick Penny but its close.

penny because of his ironic use of the dummy pass.

He also put out a lot of dodgy cut-out passes as well, the one which almost gifted Pat Richards a try in the 2009 semi final at Widnes, i think that would have put Wigan 14-0 ahead and i doubt we would have come back from that.

I think it was one of his dodgy cut-out passes that lead to Leroy Cudjoe racing away in the game where we got knocked out of the play offs last season, we still had time a chance to win that game and that pass was never on. We needed a converted try so he should have been putting the ball back towards the sticks and not right out into the corner.

Mathers is a great fullback on his day as per his wembley performance last year, he would have got the Lance Todd in most years for that kind of performance.

Anyway back to the debate. Lee Penny for me, he was the better and more solid all round fullback, he very rarely made mistakes, he supported the line well and weighed in with his fair share of tries. His only slight fault was he tended to keep hold of the ball for too long instead of passing to support players.

P.S... I thought Brian Johnson would have been included in a debate about some of our past fullbacks, he gets my vote all day long.

Penny was at the end of his career when I started watching so I can't quite form an opinion. One thing I do remember is that switch pass to him of every bloody scrum!

There wouldn't be much debate because Johnson was better than all of the other fullbacks since the 1980s at least, so would have to go a long way back to find someone worth a debate. I'm choosing players that are roughly equal so opinions will be split.

Yet strangely Paul Ford was selected in front of him for the 1986 Premiership Final. I can't remember but I can only presume that Johnno was returning from injury.

The Penny move.

To be fair, it was a tactical move which meant that on our next tackle the hooker/halves had options left and right. But of course you already knew that



Looking back, Penny was a pretty solid fullback, I don't ever remember him dropping much high ball, and generally his positioning was good. Aside from the 1993/94 season we were very average during his time with us - he might have played just as well as Mathers did in the Challenge Cup final, but we hardly ever competed in the big games in those days.

Lee Penny, great under the high ball, but couldnt sidestep a postbox.

Mathers, not so good under a high ball, but better footwork and ball in hand ability than Penny.

Id have Mathers, more versatile, and...gulp... i grew to like him.

Both had their best games in p&b against Leeds Rhinos too.

Lee Penny for me, purely because that was around the time I started watching and he became my favourite player.

Didn't like what happened to him at the end however saw him a couple of months ago and seemed to be in a good place.

I always thought Lee did nothing wrong to deserve the treatment he got at the end of his career with us.
He was usually reliable but so was Mathers imo, but I liked Lee for his ability to break the first tackle which Richie rarely did and although he must have been the biggest FB in SL he had a fair turn of speed. On balance I'd go for Penny mainly because of his loyalty to the P&B when he had the opportunity to go elsewhere.

I'd go for Mathers - a much 'classier' player with a wider range of skills. I too liked Lee Penny and he was quick and could finish off moves well.

The question on Mathers - is was he actually playing in the right position? He played stand off for England Academy versus Aussie Schoolboys when we won and if you look at his skills then they were more suited to stand off.

Also - the game has changed a bit in that it's more important the wingers are good under the high ball than the full back - with the full back playing more as an auxilliary pivot. (I know it's helpful that full back doesn't spill a high ball! But I think you get my drift in terms of what skills are more important for the role now.)

Splinters up bottom for me on this one

Penny rarely let anyone down. As people have posted before, great under a high ball. A pretty good tackler. Often won us matches (Wigan '97 and '01)with well taken tries at the death, but blew a few as well, with his reluctance to pass the ball when we had an overlap on the opponents line. My main gripe with Penny, was his failure to really push Radlinski for the GB no1 jersey (he certainly had the talent).

Mathers did OK for the majority of games I saw him in P&B, bar the "brain farts". However, I never really got all the praise that was heaped upon him, whilst at Leeds. I always (including his time with us) found him to be a "Emperors New Clothes" type of player, with Eddie & Stevo raving about him, and me thinking 'well, he did OK, but that's about it'

What does Lee PEnny do now? A lad i was talking to on holiday in Benidorm from Wigan said hes a bit of a jack of all trades - electrics / DIY etc.

Anyone know?

I never thought Penny was close to pushing Radlinski for GB spot but he was a good club man. Like people say he was safe under the high ball but I wouldn't list that as a positive, it's a minimum you expect from a fullback, it's like saying a front rower was good at driving the ball in without dropping it. I thought his best aspects were like laboratoir garnier says, he had good upper body strength which meant he was a strong tackler and also it helped his try scoring record as his strength used to get him over the line sometimes. His support play was good and he got his fair share of tries.

Mathers had more to his game and when he was on loan with us in 2002 he looked promising, I thought he was going to be a star and was disappointed that the deal Plange had tried to arrange where we signed him permanently, didn't materialise. He'd been on our books as a schoolboy before signing for Leeds. His tackling was good and he could join the line as a second standoff. I think without having had injuries at the wrong time he would have played internationally and could have had a better crack at the NRL. I don't remember him being error prone at Leeds but when he came back with Wigan it seemed like he had a hard time with putting in high tackles and also teams found out he was prone to making mistakes under kicks. With us he had his crowning glory moment at Wembley when he could easily have got the Lance Todd on another day with his hat trick of try saver tackles so whatever happens in the rest of his career he has got that.

Overall I reckon Mathers was better than Penny but he probably got moved on from Warrington because he makes more errors and was a target for other teams. Maybe if Penny had come through ten years later he would have been our first choice still now, in our backline today he would have scored 15 or so tries a season and wouldn't have been a player other teams could target so we might not have looked to replace him.

Lee Penny was one of the worst Fullbacks we have ever had at the club and wouldn't compare to anyone I'd even put Bridge at fb before Penny !

WELCOME BACK....WE'VE REALLY MISSED YOU

PADDERS....

What were you watching when Lee Penny was playing? Safe as houses and scored 100 tries for the Club. Beats Mathers any day for me.

Lee Penny and Kevin Penny are not related its ok to say something positive about Lee....



anyway Dave Lyon.....

Lee Penny was dependable but i never thought he was anything special, compared to guys around in his time like Steadman, Hampson, Ford, Radlinski even Gary Connolly. I would have had any of those at Wire over Penny.

Mathers only problem was consistency, he was capable of far more than Penny but equally capable of far more mistakes than Penny.

On their day Mathers is head and shoulders better than Penny but just not as consistent.

I'd rather take the risk that the other guys would chuck in and win the game and go for Mathers.
Look at Mathers in the CC final this year, top drawer.