Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Tue Oct 15, 2013 7:45 am  

Wouldn't say Ben Harris was a superb player, he was solid and a good defender playing in a very good team. No pace what so-ever.

Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Tue Oct 15, 2013 10:01 am  

Ben Harris was a good solid player. When he went back to Aus (for personal NOT injury reasons ) he resurfaced immediately in Queensland and held down an NRL starting spot in the back row .

[Bulliac]

Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Wed Oct 16, 2013 9:24 am  

Bullnorthern wrote:

Ben Harris was a good solid player. When he went back to Aus (for personal NOT injury reasons ) he resurfaced immediately in Queensland and held down an NRL starting spot in the back row .

My recollection is that he played in the NRL after he left us, rather than going back injured. He was a cracking player imo, superb defence and pretty good with ball in hand. I doubt anyone would say no to someone of his ability.

Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Wed Oct 16, 2013 9:33 am  

You can have the most amazing qualities of any human that ever lived as a RL player, but if you are short of pace, there will be many who will never notice them.

Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Wed Oct 16, 2013 1:59 pm  

In our position we can't sign top internationals. What we do need are good, solid and reliable players who can come in and do exactly what the coach asks of them. And i do believe there are hundreds of players out there playing in so called second grade that are just waiting to be given a chance. And lets be honnest, our league isn't the NRL. A decent player from down under could turn out to be very good here. That doesn't mean this lad will do that. We will have to wait and see and if he does turn out well we will need to extend his stay before others start sniffing round. Shontane and Les were relatively unknown so who knows? It's a gamble but that is all we can afford at this moment.

Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Wed Oct 16, 2013 2:21 pm  

woolly07 wrote:

In our position we can't sign top internationals. What we do need are good, solid and reliable players who can come in and do exactly what the coach asks of them. And i do believe there are hundreds of players out there playing in so called second grade that are just waiting to be given a chance. And lets be honnest, our league isn't the NRL. A decent player from down under could turn out to be very good here. That doesn't mean this lad will do that. We will have to wait and see and if he does turn out well we will need to extend his stay before others start sniffing round. Shontane and Les were relatively unknown so who knows? It's a gamble but that is all we can afford at this moment.

Shontayne maybe, but I wouldn't say Les was relatively unknown when we signed him.

[Bulliac]

Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Thu Oct 17, 2013 12:47 pm  

HamsterChops wrote:

Shontayne maybe, but I wouldn't say Les was relatively unknown when we signed him.

To be fair, back in those early days Les was far better known because of the comparison in size with Jonah Lomu, than he was for his own ability and wasn't that well regarded in the Aussie competition. He'd scored a few tries but was [according to the Aussie fans] a 'liability under the high ball' and generally regarded as a poor defender. I think it's fair to say the Bulls improved that side of his game no end and certainly put him into the international frame as a genuine quality player.

[Bullseye]

Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:22 pm  

We did sign a few genuine world class players during our glory years, Henry Paul, Joe Vagana and Brad Mackay spring to mind. More recently Steve Menzies was pretty much as good as any second rower around when he signed for us, shame we didn’t have a better side around him.

[Bulliac]

Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:13 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

We did sign a few genuine world class players during our glory years, Henry Paul, Joe Vagana and Brad Mackay spring to mind. More recently Steve Menzies was pretty much as good as any second rower around when he signed for us, shame we didn’t have a better side around him.

and an even bigger shame we let him go..

Re: Adam Henry - From Newtown Jets to Bradford Bulls : Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:27 pm  

Pace is fine if you have a game plan to make use of it. I used to think I was pretty quick myself but playing union that normally meant being able to retrieve the ball from the next pitch after some dope had kicked it into touch!

The Bulls actually have had some backs in the last few years with some straight line speed, but unfortunately none of the other skills required such as catching and remembering which direction to run in