2 Chris Hicks

1:12pm Wednesday 23rd January 2008

One of the fittest athletes in the Australian NRL, Hicks joins Warrington after a superb season in Manly's Grand Final campaign of 2007 and was selected in the Sydney Sun-Hearld NRL Team of the Year. A superb trainer in the gym with great upper body strength who was clocked at 10.55 seconds for the 100m whilst at the Sea Eagles, Hicks is a natural outside back who is a strike threat at wing, centre or full back and a solid defender under the high ball. A Taree junior in New South Wales, he earned brief representative honours with NSW Country in the City v Country game in 2002, but has generally been one of the quiet achievers of the NRL, consistently being one of the best performing backs in the competition while staying outside the gaze of the representative selectors. Beginning his first grade career with Penrith in 1997, he was a central part of Royce Simmons' Panthers team but drifted out of the team under John Lang in 2003, before a return to regular football at Manly revitalised his career. Manly's "Best and Fairest" in his first season of 2004, he went on to enjoy four fine years at Brookvale and helped the club recover its status as one of the Australian game's giants. A lively and popular character in the dressing room.