Quote ="vastman"I've never got the Brough thing. Until he got injured against Wigan he was going really well. he was sublime against Leeds at Headingley. It was always a slight risk as the number of games he'd played must take a certain toll and maybe it should just have been a year (I can't remember if it was longer). But had he not broken his hand I reckon we'd have had a good season out of him.
The sad truth about injuries is that they are truly random. We could sign a 22 year old with no previous injuries and see him start a catalogue of injuries with us, it's just how it goes. Taufu came in after an injury but it wasn't that injury that got him it was just a broken arm and was totally unrelated. Ditto Sid I believe.
On the flip side Mr Injury himself Lee Gaskell has actually been pretty much injury free by his standards, and has put in a fair stint, who'd have thought.
Players are not like cars, mileage, make and model and regular servicing makes little difference, they just break when they break, so every single player signed is a risk IMHO.
I have never got and never will get this age thing. The only thing you lose with age is speed whilst picking up a bit of wear and tear. In every other respect older players are generally superior.
They are generally stronger, calmer and more focused, with far more experience, they are mentally far more resilient, and much less prone to distractions outside the sport. Whilst their skill sets and ability to read a game are in general far superior.
The greatest myth in RL and modern society in general is that youth is an advantage and age is a disadvantage, we really need to drop it as imho it's only superficial in most respects. Up until the late 80's most teams were predominantly made up of players in their late twenties early thirties, and in many ways were better for it. It was only the Aussie fitness obsession of the late 80's that stopped it in the UK. And that was purely because RL in the UK was still mostly part time and the infrastructure did not exist then to allow older players to catch up on fitness and they went out of fashion. Such a shame because we lost all our skill sets in pursuit of muscle and fitness whilst the Aussies kept theirs as their older full time players could stay fit.
We'd all love to be young again but almost all of us would want to do so knowing what we know now. Same with a player and if an old player is just on the right side of fitness and injuries, they will always IMO be the superior player other than in speed, and some players don't even lose that, amazingly.
Anyway that's how I see it.'"
Greetings old boy.
You're absolutely right, signing any player is a lottery regardless of history / age, granted some may carry slightly more risk than others purely based on there current fitness but that's just obvious, the biggest factor really is not always the Injuries themselves but how a player responds. The biggest example for me is Watkins, after a couple of big Injuries he looked shot, done, a shadow of his former self. I remember Salford fans bagging the signing on the basis he was a crook and for me he has been one of the best centres in the league this year, I learnt my lesson with that one and there are examples of that all throughout the game, if we're honest it's completely down to luck and circumstances surrounding recovery.
For all the kick back from fans, I wouldn't be against the signing of Gale, sure I'd prefer to unearth another promising aussie half but I just have a feeling a Gale at the club is going to be exactly what we need for next year.
