I think you will find that Andy Ackers was released from the Wigan Academy and joined us for his last year as an U19 back in 2013. He spent most of 2014 out on loan to Swinton. His local club was Hindley but I think started out with Golborne Parkside.

No mate!!! WO is correct with his information!!!

The game has changed beyond all recognition from the one we all (most of us) fell in love with.



We lost all creativity, shoulder charges, the biff, nasty forwards that smoked 20 a day, big shoulder pads, quality imports, kicking sand and Christmas rugby.



and what have we gained?



remote control cars that bring on the kicking tee's and sunny Friday evenings nights outside the rodney.

There's a risk of overdoing the nostalgia as back in the days of winter rugby the crowds were generally low apart from the big derbies and a lot of games were rubbish, littered with handling errors and the puddles of mickey in the Fletcher Street End would turn to yellow ice because it was that cold.



But we were 'appy and that's what matters!



The part that's sad for me is that the game was making progress for a while. The game in the mid to late 2000s was faster, better attended and a better spectacle than it had been before, even if we didn't have the same characters as the legends of the 80s and early 90s.



Since then things have regressed.



Everybody these days wants to see a maverick creative halfback who bucks the trend of the robotic athletic 'system players' that we see these days, so they quickly mythologise lads in the Academy.



But if you ask who was the greatest Wire player of the modern era, a lot of fans on here will give the wrong answer.

Without wishing to derail this thread or seem like I'm 'having a go' as I generally enjoy your posts BUT that last sentence is a bit of a 'big' statement...."wrong answer"?

We all know that SC and Briars are the Sergeant Major and Parky of Ain’t Half Hot Mum!

Lovely boy, lovely boy

Most questions about who is the greatest are subjective, but sometimes they aren't.



Who is the greatest Wire player in history?

I can guarantee everybody on this forum immediately thought of the same name.



Who is the greatest Wire player of the modern era?

Everybody immediately knows who it is, the difference is some won't like saying it's him, or they might prefer one of their own heroes from an earlier era, which is fine. But they know who it is.

Who is it?



Briers was a consistent top player for us once Tony Smith arrived in 2009.



There is an argument to support Morley, Johns, Joel Monaghan too.



I guess it's all in the definition of "greatest".

This echoes my thoughts you get the impression that Morley raised the standards across the squad and Briers was the player that seemed to define us from the perspective of style when we were at our 'modern' best. But it's subjective and that's the problem I had with Sally's post



It's also difficult to even define greatest but these are apparently going to be the wrong players, yet the qualities that they brought to the team is something, especially in the case of Briers that we've searched for without success

If by modern era we mean since 1997, then it's Briers. I don't care what Sally or anyone else says, it's Briers.

Given that an opinion is subjective I’m not sure how it can be wrong?

He is certainly a player that we sorely miss, thats for sure.