Which players would you have loved to have seen play live?

[Dunbar]

Which players would you have loved to have seen play live but didn't get the chance.

Here is my top 5 (I started watching League in 1984)

1. Brian Bevan.  Every time I see a photo of this guy he looks so unlike a Rugby League player I think it must be an April fool's joke but his try scoring feats were legendary.  I would love to have seen how he managed what he did.

2. Mal Reilly.  Hard as nails and skillful.  And you don't get a reputation like that in Australia without being one of the very best.

3. Billy Boston.  Simply because I grew up watching Wigan at Central Park and he was a legend

4. Arthur Beetson. A legend in Australia for so many reasons.

5. Frank Foster.  I could have picked a number of the hard men from the 60's and 70's as I would love to have seen the game played when tough guys like this ruled the roost but Foster is the one that stands out in all the stories I hear.

[Futtocks]

No.1 is the correct answer. Just to try and figure out how Bevan did what he did.

[DavidM]

Arthur Beetson would be in my list .  Bevan to . Billy Boston and Tom Van Vollenhoven... what is about wingers ?! Probably Alex Murphy just to see if he was as good as he said ! From a personal perspective I’d like to have seen Gus Risman and Ike Southward. And reading up on him , Reg Gasnier . And I could go on and on ...

[Dunbar]

Another one for my list is Wayne Pearce.

Unlike the others he was playing as I was watching the game as a teenager but because he was ruled out of the '86 Kangaroo tour I never saw him play live.

As a teenager, playing in the forwards and digesting everything I could about Aussie RL in the 80's, Pearce summed up everything about them... they seemed like super natural athletes.

I was really looking forward to seeing him on that tour and was gutted when he was ruled out.

[Clogiron]

Albert Rosenfield, ok it was a totally different game that didn't produce the big scores we see nowadays so to to score the number of tries he did must have been really special. When I saw Bevan I was really young and was shocked that someone who looked older than my Grandad was playing on the wing and scoring tries!

[Dunbar]

A few short clips of Bevan in action

 

[Man of Kent]

Puig Aubert & the 1950s French side.

[17 stone giant]

Hanley, Offiah, Jason Robinson, Schofield, Little Andy Gregory, Mal Meninga, Jonathan Davies.

Basically my GB heroes from my youth, plus big Mal.

[17 stone giant]

3 hours ago, Dunbar said:

A few short clips of Bevan in action

Wow. Appearance wise he looks like a 50 year old, but he's absolute class with the ball. Fast, elusive runner, creative with his chip and chase kicks. Very impressive. Why didn't he play for Australia? Is it just that he was over in Britain and back then he couldn't easily get back home for their matches?

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

Roger Millward

 

I started going to Rovers matches the year after he stopped the “player” part of player coach, always thought I missed out there. Mind you, still enjoyed the Championships he led us to!

[bobbruce]

In no particular order

Vollenhoven 

Boston

Bevan

Wagstaff

Goldthorpe

When you really think about it that list could go on and on. 

[Adelaide Tiger]

William Webb Ellis .... and when he got tackled I would shout ‘Stand up and play the ball backwards with your foot!’.

[del capo]

 No one on here will ever have seen them but my grand dad told me they were the best Wigan back line  in his lifetime. That's saying something when we had Boston Ashton Holden and Sullivan ( with Ashcroft and Lake also around )

Miller Todd Latham and Jenkins. The old Central Park Pavillion was propped up by four pillars each one bearing their name. There's a photo of them in Wigan World standing behind all the Cups on offer in their day

[SJD]

Willie Horne, one of the nicest men I ever met, he was Captain of Barrow, Lancashire, England and Great Britain and if memory serves me right a GB team that won a series in Australia. 

Willie opened a sport shop after retiring from the game and, much to his wifes dismay, would always sneak a freebie in to your carrier bag when you bought anything, he was belatedly recognised by the RFL and entered into the Hall of Fame and those who had the privilege of seeing him play say he was ahead of his time. 

[corvusxiii]

12 hours ago, Dunbar said:

A few short clips of Bevan in action

 

Talking to an Old Boy at work(long dead now) who went to Post Office Road to see what all the fuss was about. He couldn't believe it- there's this scrawny old man on the pitch with the players. His words were 'You couldn't see him for bandages', 'shouldn't be on the pitch'. Pause- 'then he got into some space.............!'

[Tommygilf]

Showing my age here but I'd have loved to have seen big Mal Meninga and the GB side with Jonathan Davies etc in. Failing that the GB sides that won the world cup or the Leeds side of the late 60s (which would in a time travel sense mean I could see the Football team of the same era too).

[Gerrumonside ref]

12 hours ago, 17 stone giant said:

Hanley, Offiah, Jason Robinson, Schofield, Little Andy Gregory, Mal Meninga, Jonathan Davies.

Basically my GB heroes from my youth, plus big Mal.

It was a great era and I feel privileged to have seen most of those at their peak on a semi regular basis live in the flesh.

I’d like to have seen some of the old boys such as Bevan, Boston etc and also the Saints greats like Alex Murphy and Voll to compare their feats with the later great Saints‘ sides I followed closely.

Great thread this.

[Adelaide Tiger]

31 minutes ago, SJD said:

Willie Horne, one of the nicest men I ever met, he was Captain of Barrow, Lancashire, England and Great Britain and if memory serves me right a GB team that won a series in Australia. 

Willie opened a sport shop after retiring from the game and, much to his wifes dismay, would always sneak a freebie in to your carrier bag when you bought anything, he was belatedly recognised by the RFL and entered into the Hall of Fame and those who had the privilege of seeing him play say he was ahead of his time. 

Many, many years ago I read his autobiography (or biography).  I was aware of his name but was too young to have seen him play but I greatly enjoyed the book.

[Harry Stottle]

Brian McTigue, albeit I most probably had seen him play I would have been to young to really appreciate why he was named "The Wizard" a couple of years back James Graham was getting rave reviews for his handling abillity as a prop forward, was he as good?

The stories I heard growing up about McTigue's abillity in getting the ball away needs witnessing to be believed.

[HarrogateKnights]

With my age being 33 although not the youngist I missed some of the golden generation of Aussies from the '82 tour. But for without doubt would have loved to have seen Neil Fox play. 

[DavidM]

15 hours ago, Dunbar said:

As a teenager, playing in the forwards and digesting everything I could about Aussie RL in the 80's, Pearce summed up everything about them... they seemed like super natural athletes.

I grew up with those aussie teams of the 80s and thinking they were on another planet , almost superhuman . I saw some play but I never saw the likes of Kenny , Lewis , Sterling , Meninga etc play in those great kangaroos teams of that decade . As a kid I thought we’d never beat them ... I was nearly right 

[Yosser]

1 hour ago, SJD said:

Willie Horne, one of the nicest men I ever met, he was Captain of Barrow, Lancashire, England and Great Britain and if memory serves me right a GB team that won a series in Australia. 

Willie opened a sport shop after retiring from the game and, much to his wifes dismay, would always sneak a freebie in to your carrier bag when you bought anything, he was belatedly recognised by the RFL and entered into the Hall of Fame and those who had the privilege of seeing him play say he was ahead of his time. 

I was a beneficiary of some of his freebies. How the shop made any money was beyond me. It was like a sprawling jumble sale, the staff struggled to find things. But I loved going there and he made such a fuss over me, he was a great character. It was hard to believe seeing him in his later years that he was once such an elusive athlete. Thanks for jogging my memory. 

[Dunbar]

1 minute ago, DavidM said:

I grew up with those aussie teams of the 80s and thinking they were on another planet , almost superhuman . I saw some play but I never saw the likes of Kenny , Lewis , Sterling , Meninga etc play in those great kangaroos teams of that decade . As a kid I thought we’d never beat them ... I was nearly right 

At the time, every test I arrived at I was filled with hope and (almost) every time I left I was filled with disappointment.

At least now I can console myself with knowing I had watched some truly special players in action.

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

2 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

Brian McTigue, albeit I most probably had seen him play I would have been to young to really appreciate why he was named "The Wizard" a couple of years back James Graham was getting rave reviews for his handling abillity as a prop forward, was he as good?

The stories I heard growing up about McTigue's abillity in getting the ball away needs witnessing to be believed.

McTigues's offloading ability was as good as you have heard about, HS.  A fine example was in the Challenge Cup 2nd round tie at Central Park in February, 1965, which I was lucky enough to attend.  McTigue made great yards, and then sucked in a number of tacklers, only to get the ball away to Roy Evans, who came onto the ball at pace and nobody could stop him as he ran under the posts from not far short of half-way, as I recall.  Gilfedder added the extras to go with an earlier penalty; Saints could only muster a Coslett penalty, as the home side triumphed 7-2.  The attendance, incidentally, was 62 shy of 40,000.

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

I would love to have seen many of the players and teams mentioned on here, such as Puig-Aubert and the French national team of c. 1951, as well as Brian Bevan and Jim Sullivan.

As my post above implies, I was lucky enough to see Wigan at the time they fielded the likes of McTigue, Boston and Ashton.

Looking much further back, I would have liked to see 'Dally' Messenger, both generally to see why he was held in such high regard, and more specifically, to witness the now completely lost art of kicking field goals, something of which he was, apparently, a bit of a specialist.