Warrington Wolves • Most underrated players for Wire in the SL era

Sims felt like a disappointment given what we were expecting, but I can see the case for him being underrated by Wire fans, as he got unfairly criticised.

The Guardian used to have a sports feature called "On Second Thoughts..." where they looked back at a footballer or tournament that may have been underappreciated at the time. You could do that for Ashton Sims and also Paul Rauhihi.

For comparison, think of Sims and Rauhihi compared to Andrew Gee and Roy Asotasi. The second pair were just disappointments. Gee was just a straight up and down runner who seemed to be over here to hang out with his buddies Langer and Renouf. Then he went back to Brisbane and played State of Origin for Queensland for the next two seasons! Asotasi....completely unforgettable, must have been the most disappointing signing of TS reign.

With Sims and Rauhihi, we expected a lot, got disappointed and by the end of their first season fans had probably written them off as bad signings. But by the time they had left, they had made a decent contribution. They weren't players that I ever felt were loafing about.

In Rauhihi's case, he was disappointing because at the time we signed him he was rated one of the top 2 or 3 props in the NRL, up there with Adrian Morley who we signed a year later. The difference was age. Rauhihi was four years older than Morley. North Queensland Cowboys signed Rauhihi at the same stage of his career that we signed Morley, and got elite production out of him. We got Rauhihi at the stage Salford got Morley. The will was still there but time had blunted his effectiveness.

In Sims case, he came in to a difficult situation because we'd had a number of years of watching a dominant Wire front row steamrollering teams. We then lost Morley, Carvell, Cooper and Wood within 12 months, and Asotasi had flopped as a replacement. So we were really hoping to have signed a big gun to fill their boots, and Sims looked like he was going to be good - big guy built like a tank, muscles, long hair, tattoos, looked like he was going to be an enforcer. In the NRL though he had been a good solid first grader rather than a top talent, he hadn't played State of Origin.

Basically that's what he was for us - a good solid first grader, similar level to Mark Hilton. So we were disappointed if we thought we were getting a new Morley or Carvell.

He did seem to embrace playing for Wire though, he had a lot of passion and didn't sulk or go hiding if we were losing. We have complained in the last couple of years that there aren't enough vocal players on the pitch trying to stand up and be leaders, but Sims did and seemed to command respect. He took the responsibilities of wearing the P&B seriously, he wasn't one of these Aussies who seems like they are counting down the days till they can engineer a move back home. He got involved with the club's off field stuff, teammates seemed to like him, he did a lot of media stuff too and came across well, he seems like an intelligent guy.

Because of his distinctive look, he became the face of the club when he was here, Sky or the BBC would always trail anything related to Warrington with some clip of Sims taking a hit up or shouting. Maybe that raised expectations and is judged to a higher standard, but if you take out the fact that he signed from Brisbane and looked like a character from the Vikings and just view him as any signing, he was a decent player with the right attitude to playing for Wire and the pack got weaker after he left.

Statistics: Posted by sally cinnamon — Wed May 06, 2020 5:18 pm — Replies 62 — Views 4314

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