Goodbye Pricey, Hello Again Gasnier

Rugby League has farewelled one of its true champions after Steven Price decided to hang up his boots last week due to injury.

The New Zealand Warriors captain retired with 313 first grade games, 28 State of Origin appearances for Queensland and 16 Australian test jumpers under his belt.

"Pricey" debuted for the mighty Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in 1994. He was a part of the Bulldogs premiership winning side in 1995, scoring a try, and a few years later caught the eye of the Queensland selectors for the 1998 State of Origin series. He was selected in the Kangaroos squad that very year.

Price captained the Bulldogs from the start of 2002 until he left for New Zealand after the 2004 season. He cruelly missed Canterbury's 2004 Grand Final win with injury after inspiring the club all the way in what began as a tumultuous season.

He then captained the Warriors for five seasons until injury prevented him from starting this year. This was to be his final season; last week he announced he would not recover from his injury and would not play a single game.

Off the field, Steve Price was as much a champion as he was on it. A model footballer, Price set an example in everything he did.

From this Bulldogs fan, I'd like to wish Pricey the best of luck for the future. I would have loved to have seen him finish his career in the blue and white.

In other news, Mark Gasnier made his return tonight for St George-Illawarra. It was far from a fairytale return, with the celebrated centre making a few crucial errors towards the back end of the second half when the Dragons were playing catch-up and needed him to fire.

Anyone watching with the ability to lip-read would clearly have seen that "Gaz" was filthy with himself and will no doubt work hard to readjust to the game where he once enjoyed so much success. The Dragons are far from my favourite team but I wish him well.

Lastly, it was good to see the mighty Bulldogs string two wins together on Saturday night. Clearly the decision to finally start Ben Barba is paying dividends; one can only wonder how different the tune of season 2010 might have sounded for the Dogs had Barba been promoted to the number six earlier.

However, it is of no use to ask "what if", its all about the remainder of the regular season now and the big challenge to make the top eight, starting with a must-win clash against Melbourne this weekend. If Canterbury can prevail it will do wonders to their confidence going into the business end of the season.