Aye it's a shame mate, as he scored some absolute total blinders and put in some breathtaking performances.

Correctamundo Jim..!



Awesome try versus Penrith at Anfield.
Winner against Widnes CC Final when he ducked under to score (we were struggling too).

Sam the Man very underated if you ask me

In recent times it'd have to be George Carmont.

I remember when we signed him he didn't have a club and most reports of him weren't that great. He's been the bargain of the decade for us and seems to be a true pro.

Good call, another unknown when we signed him, but what a monster of a forward, and great to see him go on to get the recognition and opporunities he deserved after he left us

Robbie McCormack

Yup definitely a very good call in recent times, I don't think anybody was expecting George to be even half has good as he has been.

Mark Cannon - for that one season in 83/84, when he finally confessed he wasn't a 2nd rower and played the rugby of his career at stand off for us, only to get carried away, demand silly money, and then turn out to be pants after all

That was the first name that came to mind



Didn't come over here with a big rep IIRC, but certainly left with one. Shame we only got one season out of him.

Aye another good call, was expecting absolutely nothing from him and was surprised we'd signed him, but what a great little season he had with us.

Ok not a surprising one in terms of the immense natural ability of the guy, but didn't most of us think Lowie was barking mad when he moved Hanley to loose forward? only to see him become an even bigger revelation there than he had in the halves and 3/4s

Doc Murray, suprisingly crap.

aww i was trying to avoid the downright terrible, unless they'd had a spell of uncharacteristic brilliance to e.g. Cannon

The only one I can think of is George Carmont, signed him as a nobody and he ripped it to pieces.

Maybe add Pat Richards 2007/8 and Amos 2010 to that list.

Brian Carney suprised me a lot with his scoot the ball in slow, throw everyone off him and go the full length and win the match routine as you do.

Ian Roberts came over with a rep for defence, so I was expecting (and got) good performances from him.

Fergusson was class and a joy to watch and rightly or wrongly I hadn't heard of him before he came.


Phil Blake surprised me in a pleasant way.

I think post was originally referring to Ian's sexual preferences, and I was trying to deflect it away from that

Mark Preston surprised me. Thought he did well considering not many had heard of him

I'm not homophobic, I'm not scared of me house!

You must be very rich. VCRs cost a fortune in those days. Our first one cost £600 and that was a couple of years later IIRC. Never seen the vid you mention.

Rented one from what was the place called? Ron Lee? Like a Wigan only version of Radio Rentals. A lot of my mates parents rented them to (some were even daft enough to get that phillips weird proprietary one) that's when i first started seeing Winfield Cup videos. Recorded the 1985 challenge cup final it was the first year we had it (didn't have it for 84 Widnes, thankfully

)

There's loads, but one that stands out for me is Brian Carney.

At Gateshull it seemed he had the raw talent to be a decent Rugby League player and I remember him making a special tackle on Renouf at the Boulevard that was well documented, but he seemed abit green, unconfident and unsure of what he was actually doing.

Coming to Wigan and being surrounded by characters such as Andy Farrell, Gary Connolly, Kris Radlinski and Adrian Lam obviously rubbed off on him and he developed into one of the best winger in the country which lead him to NRL interest and being selected as Great Britain vice captain.

Wayne McDonald. Definitely one of the biggest. Also a bit surprising.

It's amazing how this name keeps coming back to haunt us.

His first touch of the ball, I thought he looked pretty nifty.

I remember thinking: "Bravo Wigan! They've done it yet again; they've found another unknown - like Kevin and Tony Iro - who will go on to be a world-beater in the famous Cherry and White".

Twenty seconds later, I realised that we'd actually entered a new era of signing complete unknowns who were unknown for a reason, i.e. because they were total crap.

Shem Tatupu anyone?

I don't think Kevin was an unknown because I remember reading about how good he was before we signed him. I agree about Tony though.
Tommy's big hits have surprised me.
The player that surprised me most was not a Wigan player. It was Brian Bevan. He was about 37 and 9 stone we through and still scored two 70 metre tries in a game against Wigan. Amazing. Never saw him at his peak but my dad said he ALWAYS beat the full-back.

There were loads, particularly during the Golden Era of the early 1990s. Everyone says that Wigan bought their way to success by buying all the big players - they didn't. They bought players in, but they were mainly players at small clubs, who Wigan made great.

Such as...

Billy McGinty - no one could understand why we'd sign a journeyman, comparatively small second rower from Warrington, who weren't that good at the time

Neil Cowie - who the hell was he?

Ged Byrne - I still maintain he is one of the best signings we ever made. Never really a permanent fixture in the first team, but he could play anywhere, just seemed to effortlessly slot in wherever he was required, and never had a bad game for us.

Frano Botica - played representative RU, but no-one had heard of him, and it was generally considered that RU players needed a lot of work to turn them into RL players. John Monie didn't want him, and rumour has it that Frano only learned how to kick goals so that he stood a better chance of getting into the first team. One of the best stand offs we've ever had.