I was just thinking about which clubs were trying to sign Gareth Ellis and It got me to thinking about Ben westwood..

One year (2004) being Virtually A laughing stock playing on the Wing and looking out of Place.. In fact as I recall we tried to swap him for a Wakey Player in the off season ... Then at the first game of 2005 at London Bronco's Playing as a makeshift prop and looking like the best forward on the pitch.. According to myself Mark M and MrF..

Never looked back since

I said on the VT " Westwood>Ellis"

Ridiculed beyond belief but sod em, i stand by that 100%

To be fair Ellis Has many more Strings to his bow.. But If Its a 100 second rower who likes to terrorise defences.. Its Mr Westwood Everytime

Westwood terrorise's attackers too.

Westwood would have been bracketed along with Ellis had he played for Leeds.

Agreed.. He does seem to be getting his fair share of recognition now though.. Stevo was creaming over him last week...

he could easily stake a claim to be the best all round forward currently playing in superleague.

I don't think anyone would have been able to say that back in 2004... it really is remarkable how far he has come as a player.

I watched on in awe against HKR as he put them to the sword in the last 20 minutes.

if you offered me Ellis in a straight swap there is no way in the world i would take that deal.... not a chance.

Realistically Would you Swap BW for any other second rower in the world on this current form ?

I probably don't watch enough NRL to comment on that in all honesty.... I certainly wouldn't swap him for any other backrower in superleague, that's for sure.

TBH when you look at the imports that other teams have brought in as second rowers in the time that Benny has been with us , i don't think that any of them have been any better in a club role than Benny has for us...they've probably been as good but no better ,although Louis played his heart out & it looks like Mr Waterhouse could be a good buy.

Much as I am a Westwood fan.
Let's not get carried away.
It's a bit reminiscent of Andy Goodway being hailed as the Worlds best RL forward in 1981 - just before the 1982 kangaroos landed.
I would swap for
Sam Thaiday
T Rex
SBW
P Gallon
+ other 2 SRs that play for St George Ben Creagh
Lets not forget BW is better than Waterhouse, but Waterhouse is not a current SOO player

I think logically you have to look at the type & age of the forwards that are likely to be attracted to SL. The likes of Thaiday ,SBW & Gallen are basically of the same mindset as the other players that arrive on our shores...for whatever reason the players that we attract are not at the top of their game & cannot secure suitable contracts in Oz ,& our only hope of attracting the aforementioned stars is for them to be in a similar position or for the salary cap to be raised considerably .

Westwood has to be the stand out player in super league so far for man of steel ! Roby looking good but even I would look good in that saints team ! See how Tompkins goes when they play the better teams ! Think Leeds were concentrating on the WCC when they played the pies !
Benny for MOS
Wire win the treble
Catalans finish second in SL

According to Phil Clarke on Boots n all this week you are wrong.

His stats say that Tomkins is the stand out player in SL so far.

Call me an old cynic if you like but surely its no coincidence that 'Mr Wigans' stats have picked out a Wigan player as the stand out player. I may add that Phil's stats do seem to favour the backs (full backs especially) and would never allow for an equal comparison between backs and forwards. But dont let that get in the way of a good Wigan story.

To me this my Dad is harder than your Dad is a bit daft.
To say someone is the best in any area of Sport is purely and wholly subjective.

I think that Super Ben is a fantastic player and I am very very pleased that he plays for us.

Westwood is a superior attacker and defender to Ellis. Both great players though. Westwood has pace, ball-playing ability and the ability to make 40 tackles. Ellis is a rock-solid defender and ball-carrier, but he lacks the mongrel of Westwood.

Anyone who thinks the 'T-Rex' is better than either has spent too much time listening to Phil Gould and the Aussie-worshipping brigade. Thaiday and Gallon are certainly superb players.

Gallen is the numero uno in the world for me

Is Ben Westwood still the most underrated player in Super league (Like he was 2 seasons ago)

To be fair I always thought at the time in 1981 that calling a teenage second-row playing for Oldham in the old second division the Worlds(sic) best RL forward was stretching it a bit.

Westwood player of the month in Rugby League World.

Harrisson Hansen..

no..best 2nd rower over here by a country mile,,always gives 100%.you only have to look at him when he gets subbed,poor lad looks knackered...and what a really nice guy to talk too as well...candidate for man of steel(thats if roby dont get it for having 2 decent games)

To be fair, he looks like that at the start of the game.

He jogged back onto the pitch against HKR in the second half like he was totally knackered, then set the place alight with one of the best 20 min spells I've ever seen anyone play... I think we should rest him mid-game more often if that's the result.

I wonder if we would have even signed Westwood, had Neil Turley accepted our offer in mid 2002. From my memory, this was the time when Steve Anderson left and Simon Moran (who wasn't the full owner back then but was on the board) put some money to be available to David Plange to strengthen the side, we went for Turley, Turley ummed and ahhed, then we pulled out and David Plange said we had "other irons in the fire". Pretty quickly we moved on to Westwood in a deal that also brought Nat Wood, and at the time Nat Wood was probably more significant in us surviving as Westwood's impact back then was not great.

Westwood had had a good year in 2001 under John Harbin in Wakey's great escape season when they had points deducted, but he'd started 2002 in less good form and the Wakefield fans told us that we had signed the wrong one, Ellis was the real prospect. David Plange said he was the next Keith Senior but from 2002-2004 he looked like he was a bit overrated, Wakey fans used to taunt us on our forum about him being "Ben Deadwood" the flop whereas Ellis went from strength to strength with them.

I thought when he was a centre/wing he always looked like a handful in contact but he just lacked speed and didn't have a step or swerve or anything to make him dangerous as an outside back, he was straight up and down and just a strong player that was hard to stop. He had a couple of good moments. The run in of 2003, when we made the playoffs for the first time, he had some good games on the wing, and in 2004 he got a hat-trick on the wing against Cas. But other than that he was never really consistent.

When we signed Gleeson, Fa'afili and Kohe-Love for 2005 I thought that was the writing on the wall for Westwood he would just be a back up player and then get moved on at the end of his contact, then Paul Noone I think it was who got injured and we used him as a forward and he looked great in the pack and never looked back.