I hope that when people turn their noses up at the thought of Mark O'Meley coming to our club that it is purely out of superficial antagonism to Canterbury, because in my opinion he is precisely the type of player that we need more than any.
A week to week performer in the front row, capable of all aspects of dominant front row play: brilliant metre gains, (relatively) mobile in lateral defence and capable of playing good game time (vastly improved in recent years), wonderful defender also capable of the savage hits, and most of all, a player who thrives on competition and confrontation at the highest level and instils in his teammates a belief that they can compete and win.
He is in the absolute top class of front rowers, with Steve Price, Ruben Wiki, Roy Asotasi and the Broncos famous pair.
Compare that to any prop we have had since 1986. Only Dean Pay would come close to him, and we only had Dean for a short time.
Compare what O'Meley has contributed to his club and team in the last five years to what any front rower has provided to us in the same time.
In my opinion only Fui has provided us anything near that level, and that has been in small bursts.
Vella, Cayless, Tsoulos, Stringer, Cannings ... although injury has played a part in limiting what they have done, some of them have been extremely highly paid in that time, and given back nowhere near as much as some other props provide week in and week out. Not only that, some clubs have had two or three guys of that calibre (see Broncos, Dogs, and Roosters 2002-2004). Not surprisingly,those clubs have won competitions in that time...
