Just been watching this game on` You Tube`,plenty of biff from the smellies .Wire and Sir Les at there best .Compare this game with the garbage we are seeing now.Class players then,Johno,Kelly ,Boyd Roberts ,and Jacko kicking goals!!!.

Nice semi troll, hesford



Go on. I'll bite (just to keep you happy)



We don't have "garbage", these days. We still have great players.

You've only to recall the RL we played, four short years ago. SCINTILATING.



Yes, my FAVOURITE Wire days are those of



Roberts, Drummond, Woods, Ropati (even lazier (at times) than Atkins, but 1000x the player), Gregoryx2, Johnson, Blake, Shelford, Bateman, Davies, Phillips,



but we have been spoilt in the last decade, and to some extent, the Peter Deakin eraa

Not an attempt at a negative troll but genuinely interested...does anyone who has been watching from (let's say the mid 80s and before) enjoy rugby league more now than from 80s to 2000? If so, why? RL as a whole not wires fortunes.

Just thought the game was better then. Plenty of leaders in the team ,and we recruited well from" Oz".

I much prefer RL, from 84 (the lifting of the Overseas ban) to the dissolving the Brain Johnson era.



Today's players are more savvy, trained better, healthier living etc



BUT, give me a



John Woods drop of the shoulder

Gregory to Roberts pass

Ropati looking disinterested, then[size=200BANG[/size

Drummond's impact

Shelford smoking a fag, then a pass/kick and chase that no-one else could see

Johnny D's UMPTEEN moments of GENIUS



than today's semi-robotic stuff that EVERY team plays.

We were always a good cup team ,up against a powerful Wigan side of the era. We produced our own players ,Humphreys,Cullen,Roberts ,Forster etc.The game now is" robotic".There were plenty of flair players back then ,Blake ,Holden ,Woods and Dessie and a fullback in Brian johnson who flew through the line,along with Roberts.

The game now is just so low-risk, that's the tragedy. Like lefty says, the idea of Kelly Shelford taking the ball at first receiver from a scrum in his own half and trying a chip over the top would give most coaches the screaming ab-dabs.



The game is still fantastic product to watch when it's done right, and the Wires team of a few years ago was hugely entertaining and rightly praised as such in the media, but that might be in part due to watching it in smart stadia and sunshine (sometimes), instead of crubbling terraces, lakes of urine and freezing December afternoons.



Heaven for me would be the players mentioned playing in the modern era, with the fantastic conditions and stadia we enjoy, but with the shackles remaining off to express themselves and entertain us royally.



When you consider our current half-back plight, and then think back to that time when we had Martin Crompton, as an example, who struggled to establish himself as first-choice half-back but was streets ahead of anything we have now, it brings it home. We, and the game in general, were hugely blessed.



So fire up youtube, it might be as near as you get to seeing that talent again.

That's my ideal scenario, the game and players of that era in the stadia of today with today's TV coverage. shame.

Ay lad, nostalgia's not what it was.

The Pies did that last weekend and scored a try.

It's been said many times on here, today's game is more structured with set plays etc... When I first started going to games in the early 90's as a youngster it was great to watch plays with a bit more play off the cuff (i.e Shelford from the back of the scrum) Today when things like this happens it's raved as try of the season, back then it was run of the mill



The last we saw of this type of paly was from the likes of Briers and Mick Monas

That play was called by young Hampshire that's why Smith stands back from the scrum . Great to see that spontaneous calls are not completely coached out of the young generation .



Regards , EW