In tandem with the "Favourite Wire Player" thread, I think it's also time for a confessional.

We all, [iall[/i, have a player from our past who, despite overwhelming evidence that he was a). useless b). patently not a rugby player or c). both (a) and (b) we had a little soft-spot, or a bit of runt of the litter affection for, though clearly you'd never admit as much, nor without chemical inducement anyway.

Mine, was (deep breath) Neil "Crafty" Kenyon. Forgive me father, truly I have sinned. For our younger readers, Kenyon was wing or full-back in the late 80's with an eye for the try line, a reasonable turn of pace and a kind of Phil Ford with concussion running style. He was oft-derided since he looked like we'd been recruiting in a young offenders institute when we signed him, and he was 6 stone wet through. He also had a look of Brian Bevan, minus the bandages, and plus the fag-end in the corner of the mouth.

But boy the lad scored some tries. I vaguely recall him ripping Barrow (yes I know) to shreds, and I'm sure he did a few others. He was the Woodbine whippet, the Silk Cut Scorcher and he lit up many a dull Wilderspool afternoon, for me at least.

Basil Richards for me.
Got slightly overhyped, with the name "the new Hanley". It always used to pee me off, when the "faithful" gave him grief, but he was never that bad, was he?

Barry Peters.

Jordan Cox at the start of last year

henry fa'afili nuff said

Keith Holden - when he was fit enough to play

Rowland Phillips - man mountain, unbelievably strong and very, very funny. For whatever reason it just didn't work out for him.

Kevin Meadows
Tony Hodson
Roby Muller
Andy Bennett

Pat poasa. I was only about 7/8 when I was in awe because he was the biggest bloke on the field.

Forgot about Pat! Massive bloke - wonder what happened to him.

So, did you have a thing for, if I may be so bold, dodgy hookers? I fail to see what pleasure, guilty or otherwise, Tony Hodson could have provided, though Mrs Hodson might be able to illuminate me on that matter.

Paul Cullen coz I was in the same class as him at school.

Kevin Penny

Maybe I am Mrs Hodson

Don't you know?

Check your driving licence; they're pretty reliable.

Richie Mathers. Both spells with us he was pretty average, but I just liked him. Seemed a good guy and respected the club and the fans.

Met him off the field a few times and always has the time of day to chat to kids and have a picture.

Mathews tackle on Bailey in theCC final was fantastic. My favourite memory of him.

Andrew Gee... Way past his best when he came here but I loved how he was straight in there when the grubs of Super League at that time used to try and leave one on Alfie Langer..
The Home game with Bradford where we came back from about 30-12 down to win was a particular favourite Fielden and McDermott who kind of ruled the roost as props at the time were brought down a peg or two that day..

I just thought he was lazy in the P&B. After he returned to Aus he played State of Origin again, I seem to recall.

Alan Gwilliam was in this category. Had all the skills necessary to be a top class scrum half. Trouble was, he did everything at half the necessary speed. Was like watching Andy Gregory in slomo.

Also, Wilf Briggs, a good player, had a unique ability to sidestep [iinto [/ia tackle. Never seen anything like it since.

Players that I liked even though others criticised:-
Eddie Hunter - ginger forward who got injured many times and always seemed to finish games limping
Rocky Turner - stand off with a searing lack of pace

Rocky Turner was better as a fullback in the end.

Austin Woolvine a small barrel of a man who played hooker in the 1960s. Pretty good at winning the ball in the days of brutal contested scrums but also handy in the loose. Went on to be landlord in a number of town centre pubs.

Slight variant... I didn't think Michael Monaghan was that good at first. In fact, not until the Wigan semi final in 2009.

I enjoyed Alan Hunte. He was with us for three seasons and scored a decent number of tries in all of them. When DVDV moved him to fullback in place of Lee Penny it didn't go down well with a lot of fans but he was a useful attacking weapon popping up unexpectedly in the line on to one of Langer's inside balls.

Hunte was never really barracked by the fans but I got the sense most people thought he was a bit of a lazy so and so who knew the best days of his career were back at Saints and he was winding down his career with us and seemed to be having a bit of a laugh while he was at it.

But he was still fast when he was with us and he could still score tries. We had an inconsistent team but with guys like him and Toa in the back line we had tries in us, and we noticed their absence in the grim 2002 season.

As for another "guilty pleasure", in the early to mid 1990s a young stand-off/fullback came out of our Academy who was the best young player I ever saw come out of our Academy. Absolute class in every department, great long pass, nerveless goalkicker, great step on him, could jink through the line with ease. At 18/19 years of age already as good as anybody in the league.

He seems to have been airbrushed out of memory for most of our fans but not me.

Are you talking about Rocky Turner here Sal?