I saw him as much detail as you could wish for in the first half but in the 2nd i couldnt see him as well still very clear though. !

I agree could have phrased that better, but you get my drift, Dont you

You make a very interesting point, I myself stand around half way back midway between the sticks and the corner. His positioning, angles of attack, hand position and offload/passing ability was clear for me, and those around me to see - you could tell this by the shouts of "wrap him up" and "clamp the ball" when he got it.

err...bit unfair you ask me a question and then you make it impossible to answer without being accused of trying to get the last word in - come on play fair.

Anyway your basically wrong with both theories mainly because I think you haven't read the thread properly - easily done.

I don't know whether Bird has class because I haven't got Sentanta and haven't seen the NRL for a few years. Thus I can't honestly give a reasoned opinion of his genuine ability after seeing him play for just 60mins. What I will say is what I actually said to TRB which started all this - there was nothing and I mean nothing in his perfrormane in my Knacker of an opinion that waranted the OTT description of awesome. Nor was there enough IMO in what he showed to suggest he will be "awesome" jet lagged or not.

What I did see was a typical example of an NRL pro, good basics, confidence and general ability. If he becomes awsome then fine no issues but it will take a bit more than that to convince me - I really don't know why you are so defensive on this issue - are you related.

Before I go I'll add one more into the mix. If you had arrived on sunday from mars and watched Bird play not knowing him from Adam would you have considered him better than JD or Martin who were playing a similar role for us. Be honest you wouldn't, you would probably have gone for JD. I'm clearly not saying overall JD is better than a full International test player overall but yesterday he was.

Sorry Haywire but all you are going on for now is reputation you haven't seen enough of him in SL IMHO for it to be otherwise, take his reputation away and he was just one of the better Catalan players on the day.

Shouldnt there be a "IMHO" part on the end of "yesterday he was"

I'm not differing OT by debating the games of JD and GB yesterday.

I was going on him also winning 3 points in the LE Goldthorpe Medal thing and Bird getting none, so it isn't just an IMHO to be honest

Not a chance - this guy is special - and he will turn many a game.

You lost the arguement a little when you described Trent Barrett as 'ordinary' (or words to that effect). Wigan without Trent are nowt - but if they had a little Birdy in there, it would be very different.

I was genuinely scared when he had the ball - fortunately our side were good enough to cut down his opportunities in the second half.

Question for Vasty...

Why make a big song and dance about Wakey fans making more of another teams player than our own hero's, then contribute probably more than anyone to make the thread about another teams player grow..

Replies by Vasty on Greg Bird thread (another teams player) = 20

Replies by Vasty on Dale Ferguson thread (one of our hero's who was great the other day) = 2

Right, we're getting somewhere. I take your point about reputation, but I don't have the NRL either - and comparing him with JD/Fergy/Martin is tricky. But the whole point is we do have prior knowledge, prior knowledge that told us he has hardly trained, that told us he had literally stepped off a plane, that told us he was playing for only the second time in a pivitol position and also told us he had only a handful of minutes of competitive sport in the last Christ knows how many months - forming an opinion without taking this into account is foolish.

I don't have Setanta, I can't recall ever seeing him play - I am not silly enough to form an opinion on reputation and hype. I am not a starstruck schoolboy enfatuated by the NRL or its players - I base the opinion on what I saw, and based on that he looks one hell of a player - despite the prior knowledge I have of him rather than becuase of it.

Come on - Trent Barrett underperformed for Wigan in virtually every match he played in especially the big ones. He was always one of there better performers as you would expect, but IMO never lived up to expectation. However both of us are entitled to our opinions on that player as we both saw him play in SL regularily. One of us is right one is wrong...

In the case of Bird what you are saying isn't even opinion it's pure speculation based on reputation and that is where you and a few others have lost it. Saying if Wigan had Bird they would be better, again pure speculation - no matter how good a player is there is no guarantee. Sure you'd expect them to be better, when they signed Barrett you would have expected a trophy or two. This really is grass is greener stuff.

If you are seriously suggesting you saw enough on sunday to confirm your belief then all I can say is please give me your guess for next weeks lottery.

Anyway you just ignore me you normally do, what do I know

Question for you - why not read the full thread before commenting. My initial and rather reasonable response was questioning TRB description of Bird as "awesome" which still tickles me.

The rest snowballed from a bunch of people who have an obsession with any players other than our own, usually Aussies who are always bigger, better, stronger and smell nicer than our own.

I have been told I'm a knacker because I won't join in with their rather sad almost sheep like worship at the feet of a reputation on legs.

Maybe it's me, maybe I should go with the flow, maybe I should just be impressed with Bird because some folk say he is great and is now the dominant player in SL.

If Bird was so great on sunday as has been suggested then please can someone pray tell me why he didn't get 123 in the Goldthorpe match award, coming behind Bibey for one! If he was so awesome I'd have thought they would have given him the award outright

People have come on here all bolshy and demanding I retract my thoughts, I won't and I'll post on this thread as much as I wish if that's ok with you