Costigan - good riddance. He never amounted to what I thought he could be for us (ie a rampaging, aggressive metre eater like he was at the Dragons in 2010).
Tahu - I've always loved the bloke, even when he went off the rails. I knew all along that none of his woes would have come to pass if he stayed loyal with us after 2004. Sydney can do that to a young bloke. But it was good to see him come home after a long and essentially fruitless time spent in Sydney at Parra, Penriff and the Waratahs.
I was at the game where he slam dunked the goalpost. Damn he was electric back then and he knew how to work the crowd. He'd score a hattrick and 20000 fans would be chanting TAAAA-HOOOO. But I feel his time is drawing near. I hope he retires and the Knights organise a special tribute on Old Boys Day for him before we smash the abortion of a club that stole him from us. Tahu always has been a NEWCASTLE legend.
Hilder - I felt that Waltzing would have been a mainstay in our squad at least for the 2012 season before Jeremy Smith arrived. His best position was lock and he was definitely in the Billy Peden mould in that he never did anything flashy but always put in the hard yards, did all the work that no one else would have noticed and racked up a mountain of tackles each match.
I thought he would have been an ideal player for Bennett, but instead of playing Matty to his strengths at lock Wayne tried to convert him into a bench hooker which simply didn't work. You can't really say a player like Costigan was more deserving of the lock position than a reliable, committed and typically error-free player like Hilder.
Anyway I'll always remember Matty as the player who never stopped giving 100% for us even when the nuffies around him didn't pull their weight. We would have lost a lot more games in the Stone years if Hilder wasn't out there tackling everything that moved.
