Mathiou was rather cruelly nicknamed handbrake due to a perceived tendency to pull up suddenly just before the point of impact

Agreed

Neither were i a plodder hardly broke a tackle and didnt hit partially hard in defence.On the plus he had decent hands for a prop.

Matthiou's most memorable feature were the green souls on his boots.

In the SL era it's JP by absolutely miles.



Before then there are a few names but they're mainly before my time. Leeds weren't really known for having great props in the 80s and 90s.



Dickinson was good. As has been said Clues was a second rower.



McDermott was OK but his discipline let him down. Crooks was awful at Leeds and ballooned in size as he got stuck into the ale.



Players like Harmon, Howard and the Raynes were steady but v unspectacular.

Crooks was player of the year 88-89 whilst we never saw the best of him he was certainly a long way from awful.

TBF I only saw him in games versus Northern and when Leeds were on TV. I always thought he was massively overrated.

Lee Crooks was a fantastic player but simply just didn't ever want to ever leave his beloved Hull FC IMO

I guess that it must have been hard for him to be forced to leave FC and to sign for Leeds against his wishes?

Quote doc-rhino="doc-rhino"jp and moz would be all time team but moz 2nd row at leeds became bulkier in aus 84-85 forsome reason i rated the players each game and player of the season was trevor paterson a mark glanville of a prop amongst the bigger name signings https://www.therhinos.co.uk/timeline/1980s/1984-1985/ people that have only watched this millenium missed the many failings at trying to replace holmes and ward - 2 names mentioned in the article andy mack and russ sowden , could throw in andy mason , peter lister , the dleeve , dixie mcneill -- that season was also tc's first'" Gavin Jones got the headlines with some long distance tries but Paterson was very consistent week in week out.

Quote doc-rhino="doc-rhino"jp and moz would be all time team but moz 2nd row at leeds became bulkier in aus 84-85 forsome reason i rated the players each game and player of the season was trevor paterson a mark glanville of a prop amongst the bigger name signings https://www.therhinos.co.uk/timeline/1980s/1984-1985/ people that have only watched this millenium missed the many failings at trying to replace holmes and ward - 2 names mentioned in the article andy mack and russ sowden , could throw in andy mason , peter lister , the dleeve , dixie mcneill -- that season was also tc's first'" Gavin Jones got the headlines with some long distance tries but Paterson was very consistent week in week out.

Peter Smith & Jeff Grayshon as our starting props. "We wear the blue, we wear the gold, our props can't run 'cos they're too old."

The shoulder injury against Wigan in the JP semi ended up being very serious. I was at that game and then was t the A team game some months later when he made his "comeback". I thought he was pregnant with triplets. That was his first season at Leeds and it took some time for that added "bulk" to work its way off (not sure all of it ever did). That injury was so bad that he didn't tour in the summer ('88 I think). Considering it was a dislocated shoulder in January that's how serious it was. But pies, burgers and bitter are probably not the best therapy.

Leeds signed him when he was 23/4 I think, he had a hamstring injury early season then did his shoulder. The photo of him signing for Leeds that they put in the paper looks like one of those hostage photos where they get the downed American airman to admit to war crimes.

I watched a lot of Aussie league from the 80's on YouTube during the lockdown and there were several appearances from Crooks for Wests and Balmain. He was Wests captain and well worth it. He played in the front row at Balmain with Benny Elias and Blocker Roach. Ouch.

Great ball handler, great goalkicker and when he was mobile he was very mobile. Plus he gave me one of my fave moments at a game, being tackled by Graeme West in a game at Central Park he finally got tired of being ragged around the head, threw the ball away to free up his punching hand and smacked the s*** out of West. The geriatric Pie Eater next to us on the terraces nearly exploded with rage. I think I told him to calm down before he had a heart attack.



When we signed him he was rated the best forward in the world but he wasn't fit and he didn't want to play for us.

Why do I remember all this useless rubbish?