Saw this article on Fox Sports today and chuckled to myself...
Looks to be written by an intern at Fox so I'll spare him the heat of not knowing this, but for me Darren Lockyer was definitely the biggest star Parra let slip. Although he was never a junior, I remember him saying in an interview that he was really close to joining the Eels before he joined the Broncos in the beginning of his career. Just imagine how different the 90's could have been for Parra if we had Locky? Yeah, Gallen and Maloney are definitely key players we should have kept, but for me it's Locky.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/the-one-that-got-away-each-nrl-clubs-biggest-star-they-let-slip/news-story/bec04299a906d7164b192319eee73c77
Who's your 'the one that got away'?
Replies
Of the players that actually played for us but we lost Jamie Lyon would be close to the top.
1) Brett Hodgson
2) Pat Richards
3) Willie Tonga
4) Jamie Lyon
5) Scott Donald
6) Jason Bell
7) Tim Smith
8) Jason Cayless
9) Brad Drew
10) Adam Ritson
11) Andrew Ryan
12) Ian Hindmarsh
13) Michael Hodgson
14) David Solomona
15) Mark Tookey
16) Danny Sullivan
17) David Penna
Out of that lot, Lyon is probably the only player we missed. Pat Richards made us pay when he played against us but not much harm done - we have had good wingers over the years. In fact the halves you have chosen just show how bad things were until Moses came along.
Add to that list: Jason Cayless, James Maloney, Daniel Toupou, David Klemmer, Trent Hodgkinson, Luke Keary, Jorge Tafua.
Jason Cayless is in that my team, but the team I picked is only for players that played 1st grade for us. None of the others did as far as I'm aware.
Sorry dude. Didn't see it and wasn't aware the criteria was to have playd 1st grade for us.
Jason Smith surely needs a spot in your side!
Possibly, but I think we got his best years, his time with the Raiders was injury plagued
Yeah, technically you’re right re Adam Ritson, but not getting the chance to see him at his peak was just devastating for me. At the time I saw as a future Eels captain, he was an incredible talent. I remember reading an article from just before the SL war broke out in 94, he was coming off contract at the end of the year and his manager Steve Gillis sat down with Sharks management at the time and they were in agreement that on the open market he was worth as much as 300k a season. In 1994 the cap was about $1.5m, so in today’s money he would be worth about $2m a season.
So true. 'The Butterfly effect'. He "might" have been a good player but not "exactly" what he became. Perhaps something similar to Brett Hodgson. Boy was he awesome but imagine placing him into the teams lockyer had around him.
Yeah, solid point Wong. Really not sure what would have happened with Locky, but I can say with confidence he would have improved the team causing a domino effect of success.
Maybe we wouldn't have lost as many players around the early 2000's, maybe we don't lose those semi-final catastrophes because of his leadership...
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