In an attempt to be more optimistic in 2023, another following on from the recent posts, but this one for those who we’ve signed that you didn’t expect anything from, but they turned out to be good for us.

Fozzard for me, looked like an old man held together by tape when we signed him and I thought we got a dud, turned out to be great for us and beyond.

Mark Gleeson as well, not technically a signing but he just turned into a really useful player.

Brent grose. Knew hardly anything about him when he signed and he was superb for us.

Joel Monaghan - thought he was just another disgraced Aussie coming over to supplement his retirement fund, ends up with a try scoring record of 1 per game!

Chris Hicks thought he was a make weight turned out to be a fantastic winger.

Taken the liberty of adding Nat Wood in myself. I don’t think anybody expected the return we got from him.

1. Chris Hicks
2. Joel Monaghan
3. Brent Grose
4. Chris Bridge
5. Rob Smyth
6. Gregg Mackey
7. Nat Wood
8. Nick Fozzard
9.
10. Bob Jackson
11. Darren Burns
12. Ben Westwood
13. Sid Domic

one Wigan signed from Wire - Billy McGinty

turned out to be a fantastic signing. He always looked out on his feet / would only do short spells at Wire but stepped up to the next level at Wigan (this is just my opinion as i didnt see him week in / week out at wire though)

and to add to his playing talents - Pineapple ring John

gonna be honest, i'm not seeing the mark gleeson thing.

Darren Burns, Sid Domic and Greg Mackey

Maybe he thought this was the “hair” topic?

Burns is a great shout, he's again another one of them good solid aussie pros

Removed on appeal. In my defence, he looked like a bag of bones with no hope of making the first team and went on to to play for us for a while.

fair play, i can think of 1 or 2 ppl on here who would rage after seeing his name in a [ipositive[/i thread

Michael Monaghan for me, i didn't know F all about him and he didn't do much at 7. But once he moved to 9 he was Superb for us. Same with Chris Hicks, knew nothing about him but he's one of the best wingers i've ever personally seen play for us.

Graham Appoooooo

100% this. When I first saw him with Monas and King in Churchills, Hicks had a belly on him and looked all the ‘just the tag on’ people thought of him…
But wow, he was the best of the 3 and by some margin from the initial season.
He is my lads favourite player because this hatrick at Wembley.

Nick Fozzard was far better at Saints. He was forever knocking on for us.

Halliwell could be a good shout and more recently Wardle….

But the most obvious no one has picked up on…

BOB JACKSON

Halliwell lol

How about the young centre/ winger we bought from Wakefield who went on to be an outstanding second row forward......Ben Westwood

He was pretty useful and stood out in a pant team. I recall he was only on lone that first spell. Wasn’t anywhere near as good during his second spell.
I could say the same about Greg Mackey too.

Alan Bateman & Kevin Ellis - RU recruits that we didn't know much about, I certainly didn't expect much from, but turned out to be decent signings (or excellent in the case of Bateman!)

Could Chris bridge to centre be described as a pleasant surprise? He was signed as a young half want he? He was a fantastic centre.
Jon Clarke for 9?
Ben Westwood? Nobody thought he was going to turn out that good surely? Same could be said of Chris Hill?
Matty Russell first season was a huge surprise.
Rob Smyth maybe?

Burns is a good shout, so too are domic and Brent Grose.

just seen his name in the other list, vagana, he was a very pleasant surprise and somewhat filled the gap left by iestyn's disapointing departure

Simon Grix.

We signed him from a Halifax team that had just gone down and been the worst SL team ever. He was touted as this bright young talent but I was sceptical that we had signed anybody really significant.

What I really liked about Grix as a pleasant surprise was that every year I seemed to re-evaluate my expectations of him upwards and I would still end up being surprised how good he was.

Grix was the perfect combination of being an incredibly talented and complete player and also had great mentality. He had lots of injury set backs, but he always came back and was immediately great again, there never seemed to be a period of him "getting back to what he was", he was always at that level. He got moved around into different positions and he never seemed to be affected, he could always be relied on no matter what setbacks he'd had, how much he was being asked to compromise by moving positions, whether we were in good form or bad form, nothing bothered him, he was always able to be a top performer. Very, very few players are like that.

Also this might seem predictable coming from me but: Lee Briers

We signed him in the aftermath of selling Iestyn Harris who at the time was the game's biggest young superstar. Yes, Briers had had some promising games filling in for Bobbie Goulding during his ban, but who would have really believed that we were bringing in a player who was going to be better than Harris?

Two excellent nominations.