Official Aaron Woods

[Gards]

Woods was gifted rep positions and juicy contracts throughout his career. he might train hard to keep his body right but his nickname of Shazza was well earned on the back of being a pillow and at times incredible lazy and undisciplined

Bradbury was in a sport that paid **** all and was sliced open by an ice skate and had also broken his neck. He was smart enough to know his limitations and hang back letting more overly aggressive skaters trip themselves up under pressure. Woods hanging back isn't strategy it's cause he can't be assed in that particular moment. Effort shouldn't be a question in FG professional RL but it is with him.

Woods has been mostly good for the sharks and he's a good bloke but I'm glad we got him at a big discount and not that disappointed his is being moved on anymore and being given the captaincy hasn't seemed to elevate his game what so ever. I wish him the best for whatever comes next

I still like him more than that Shaun Johnson flog and what has become of Josh Dugan

 

[Thresher]

Gifted rep positions? Why would selectors do that?

 

[Gards]

there was "no one better" but there should have been and probably was. think back to those NSW blues teams that lost the series year after year. same hacks selected year after year that couldn't get the job done. Blues had that problem for a long time picking names and reputations over form and quality. Woods was but 1 of many in the same boat

and then a Aussie squad that ya granny could make the international competition so weak until just recently

 

[Thresher]

there was "no one better" but there should have been and probably was. think back to those NSW blues teams that lost the series year after year. same hacks selected year after year that couldn't get the job done. Blues had that problem for a long time picking names and reputations over form and quality

and then a Aussie squad that ya granny could make the international competition so weak until just recently

So the whole Blues squad were gifted their spots?

 

[Gards]

So the whole Blues squad were gifted their spots?

Please remind me of the immense quality the blues trotted out to lose for the best part of a decade + . Pearce, , Annasta , Farah, Gids, Creagh, Woods ect. ect fkn LOL can't believe we can't beat QLD with these titans of the game

You have a short memory if you think the punters were happy with these sorta incestuous repeated rep selections year to year that kept letting us down but I never said the entire blues squad you did - there were some genuine good and talented blues players in the mix that actually deserved to be there year after year but too many of the frauds were incumbent auto selections

Selection process got better once Freddy took over

 

[bort]

Pretty interesting interpretation of lazy and being gifted his position. What does it say about the rest of the nrl for 2013-2017? Must have been a pretty soft comp...
And the international team apparently was selected on strength of opposition now not best player available?

Aaron Woods SOO years
Year PCM Offloads Tackles AllRuns Meters
2013 1st 19th 15th 8th 7th
2014 13th 24th 46th 17th 22nd
2015 6th 46th X 13th 10th
2016 15th ** ** 7th 10th
2017 6th 7th X 10th 22nd

**for some reason 2016 stats only have a top 15
X denotes not in the top 50 average

Never makes the list for missed tackles, errors only recorded 2016 onwards but he doesn't make list
Penalties he is 20th, 18th, 33rd, **, X

Anyone consistently putting up top meter and tackling stats playing prop in the NRL must be doing something right.
Seem to me you are revising Woods' career based on the fact you don't like him
Apparently only made the SOO side due to poor selection policy (agree there were definitely some mistakes made) but then he was also making the Aus side through different selectors and despite the Qld domination

 

[Gards]

seems to be you are throwing out stats to make a player appear better than the reality. I remember Woods name flashing up on those VB hard earned indexes during Origin games and laughing my ass off along with the rest of the eastern seaboard

the bloke doesn't have a club and his old clubs fans don't want to touch him cause those stats don't show the laziness, ill discipline and general sluggishness he is famous for

FMD everyone is a Woods lover today haha. I like the bloke too, been a reasonably good player for us but he has his limits and flaws. I just cannot compare him to a Gold Medal Olympian that made history sorry

If the Storm pick him up great would love to see how Woodsy goes in that system and culture. could work out well for both parties but @ a pleb club he will be his bad old self

He did something right to make those Aussie squads agree but as long as they had those core QLD players it didn't matter they were going to beat up on anyone with their eyes shut

 

[bort]

seems to be you are throwing out stats to make a player appear better than the reality. I remember Woods name flashing up on those VB hard earned indexes during Origin games and laughing my ass off along with the rest of the eastern seaboard

the bloke doesn't have a club and his old clubs fans don't want to touch him cause those stats don't show the laziness, ill discipline and general sluggishness he is famous for

FMD everyone is a Woods lover today haha. I like the bloke too, been a reasonably good player for us but he has his limits and flaws. I just cannot compare him to a Gold Medal Olympian that made history sorry

If the Storm pick him up great would love to see how Woodsy goes in that system and culture. could work out well for both parties but @ a pleb club he will be his bad old self

He did something right to make those Aussie squads agree but as long as they had those core QLD players it didn't matter they were going to beat up on anyone with their eyes shut

He definitely is not as good now as he was then, but not having a club now does not reflect that he was never good enough to deserve to play SOO or for Aus.

Especially as when he was good was when the NRL was a grind
He was never an explosive and dynamic prop, him aging and the rules changing to favour quicker feet making him even worse now also doesn't affect that back for a period he was a quite strong (if not very exciting) prop.

The wrestle hurt Woods too, and he was slow to adapt to it. For a while he had a great technique to back into the tackle and fire an offload but as teams got better at wrestling they got better at stopping that, and it was always not quite as effective in rep as club as the average defender was better.
He stuck with it a bit too long after it stopped being effective too, and that period combined with ****house hair really hurt his reputation.

He's nowhere near SOO quality now but that doesn't mean he was never any good or that he was gifted positions in rep teams or whatever other garbage. There'd be other teams fans probably saying similar **** about Fifita because they have short memories too, just a fat grub who ran sideways and never did any hard work, was gifted those rep jumpers.

I won't compare Woods to Bradbury either, makes no sense to me at all to compare the two as they are completely different.

Good to see the old 'lover' mentality hasn't stayed away from the forum for too long. Any time anyone has something positive to say (in this case that Woods used to be a fairly decent prop) about a player someone else doesn't like they must be a such a lover of that player

 

[Thresher]

There were plenty of coaches and former players with way more knowledge and experience than anyone posting on this site that rated Woods as one of the best forwards in the comp during his time with the Tigers.

 

[Gards]

bort confirmed as homo for slowmo

gards confirmed as baiter for hater

2 terrible clubs were happy to see Woods and his big $$ go and now our club won't even keep him on a pies and chips contract (unfairly I feel but I can see where they are coming from as well, especially after that **** on the weekend)

I actually think he is a better more rounded (don't make jokes) player now - in terms of discipline anyway, maybe not brute force or impact but was too many mistakes and forced plays in him prior to his Sharks stint and that was at club and rep level

 

[Thresher]

The Tigers got priced out due to a ridiculous offer from the Bulldogs. They withdrew their initial contract extension offer because it was obvious that Woods would choose the bigger $$. And who could blame him.

 

[Gards]

looking back it's crazy how little football he played for the bulldogs before being offloaded to us which was a bargain for the Sharks

on games played he has spent almost a third of his career at Cronulla

it's also crazy he's only 30, feels like he been around for ages and should be in his prime now!

 

[stormshark]

So if he has the game of his career, Friday.We snare a win,(which i believe he and Rudolph have to have, for us to achieve), and he backs it up in Semi 1, win or lose.... Should the Sharkies keep him on, at base?

 

[Thresher]

So if he has the game of his career, Friday.We snare a win,(which i believe he and Rudolph have to have, for us to achieve), and he backs it up in Semi 1, win or lose.... Should the Sharkies keep him on, at base?

Depends on how we use him IMO, and only the coaching staff would know whether it would work for them.

His major defficiency in defence seems to be lateral movement. He's too big and slow to cover much territory or to react quickly enough to avoid being stepped, particularly close to the ruck.

A team is called a team for a reason though and if those defending next to him were good enough to cover these deficiencies, and trained to do so, the problem could be minimised you'd think.

Most players have their weak points and some can't be ironed out with training or effort. It's the job of the rest of the team to fill those gaps.

Then offensively we could try to take better advantage of him being one of the best offloaders in the comp. e.g. Always have at least one guy ready to run off him.

I wouldn't be offering him big $$ in the faster game though

 

[Gards]

So if he has the game of his career, Friday.We snare a win,(which i believe he and Rudolph have to have, for us to achieve), and he backs it up in Semi 1, win or lose.... Should the Sharkies keep him on, at base?

I think it's too late for that. the call has been made, Woods isn't part of Fitz style / plans/ structures ect

 

[bort]

While it is always difficult to watch in the moment having a middle that is immune to speed and angle changes is a pretty big ask. Not many props getting signed with great lateral movement and light on their feet as their strengths.
They are there to make meters because they are big and to help stop the big guys on the other team trying to make meters.

Same goes for wider out when we get beaten by a well worked overlap - just stay on your wing ******** we all shout, as though the other team hasn't just run a play at us designed to pull in players by forcing tough decisions & commitments further in field.

Then we try and do the same stuff back and Will Kennedy creates an overlap to our unmarked winger and we go **** look how good we are at attack even though all the opposition fans are saying stick on your wing you ********.
We watch Brailey scoot and complain about nobody going with him but our opposition fans are going **** that prop is lazy at marker, this prop has bad lateral movement etc etc

As I said individually and in the moment these things hurt, we can always watch on as fans knowing what has happened and say something could have been done better, but more often than not teams will score multiple tries in a game against us. Through the middle, through an overlap, breaking a tackle, with an offload, powering over from close range, every one you can say afterwards we should have stopped that but every NRL game tries like those are scored.

The fact is despite a rules change to increase fatigue and that has favoured many teams more than ours we have leaked less points on average than last year.
I think Storm are the only other team that has actually decreased their leakage, from 13.8 average last year, this year 13.

We still have a lot of improvement needed to be a challenger in this league but the difference between us and Storm is a lot more than Aaron Woods makes an embarrassing miss in the middle every four or five games and probably more to the point we are far from the only team that can point at a middle or two and say they can be beaten at times, or point out a winger who comes in or whatever else.

 

[stormshark]

Woodsy in Beast mode, to be the enforcer, and halves protector tonight

 

[Jaz]

Hopefully he treats it as an audition for a spot at the Storm next year.

 

[bort]

Hopefully he treats it as an audition for a spot at the Storm next year.

And Finucane and Hynes do their best Cronulla impression

 

[MMsharks]

does he get a try assist tonight surely.
let paps waltz on by there three metres out


unless he was called offside, in which I didn't hear it