WHO knew the extended version of ‘Doing The Sandow’ involves you turning tail and heading back to your mum’s in the close season?

Within micro-seconds of learning that the mercurial half-back hadn’t booked a return ticket to Manchester to begin pre-season training, the surprise had worn off.

One of my last communications with the Away Day Crew concerned a charity boxing match he has apparently signed up for against Todd Carney in early December.

Not exactly the behaviour of someone champing at the bit to knuckle down to some hardcore conditioning with Johnny Clark.

All of a sudden the apocryphal tale, shared by several supporters, of how long it took for Sandow’s first pay cheque to burn a gaping hole in his pocket, rings ever truer.

This isn’t my attempt to rewrite the story of the Wire’s 2016 season, Soviet historian style. Far from it.

The little Aboriginal ace gave our posse at least three golden moments – the drop-goal against Salford, the sublime cross-field chip kick for Ben Currie at Leeds and that explosive charge of pace from a standing start which carried him past defenders and over the line more than once.

If he had the ball in hand, the chances of something off-the-cuff happening increased threefold, the buzz of expectation lingered.

But in the final reckoning your correspondent knows which of our Aussie buys had a lasting effect on the campaign. And it wasn’t the one who didn’t even have the good grace to come clean about his intentions when the curtain came down on Super League XXI.

Kurt Gidley led from the front and got bashed about a fair bit for the privilege of donning the primrose and blue. Sandow’s stuttering fitness ultimately ended his HJ stint with a whimper and the Grand Final masses were left pondering what might have been.

You would like to believe some of our homegrown contenders will plug the gap for Tony Smith, and this column has noted with pride the ability of the Young Wire to step up to the plate.

Reality would dictate we may dip into a fairly shallow transfer market. Provokes some interest for 2017 though.