Building the Herd – Craig Tribe
Posted: 31/05/2011 Filed under: Bison, Building the Herd, EPL Leave a comment#?? Craig Tribe
Position: Forward
Born: Weybridge, Surrey
Announced as signed: Bison “Meet and Greet” event 25th May
The second of three new forwards announced by Coach Moria at the meet and greet night was the news that Craig Tribe would be joining the Bison from our oldest rivals Bracknell Bees.
26 year old Tribe, who can play as a centre or a winger, played his first full EPL season in 2010-11 after 6 seasons as part of the Bracknell Hornets in the ENL. Tribe scored 10 goals and 12 assists for 22 points in the EPL last season and was Bracknell’s 4th highest British scorer as a result. He also tallied 70 PIMs across the season.
In 138 ENL games Tribe scored 107 goals and 110 assists for 217 points and 262 penalty minutes.
You don’t need a very long memory to remember that for the last 2 seasons, the Bees have not been very good. 12 league/cup games over the last 2 seasons have seen 11 wins in favour of the Bison with a lone solitary blow out Bees win. Last season’s Bees team were, to be honest, not very good.
People point towards the line of Cesky, Pinc and Watt as the only offence they have but there were players outside of that who appear to have stood out. Tribe appears to have been one that caught the eye of Steve Moria. In a team that finished bottom of the table and missed the playoffs, a 20 point third line forward will naturally stand out.
The Bees were criticised last season for having most of their Brits be moved lock, stock and barrel up from the Hornets. The 09/10 Hornets were a good side by ENL standards and I watched them walk over the Wightlink Raiders on the Island lead by players like Tribe and former Bison Mark Galazzi. From what I understand, the wage demands of Cesky and Pinc off the back of their brilliant début season in the EPL was what saw the mass movement of ENL players to the Bees along with former Hornets coach Gareth Cox becoming the Bees head coach.
That said for every Bees player, the ENL wasn’t a step too far. James Galazzi and Adam Marashi are two players who gave good accounts of themselves last season for the Bees after coming through Cox’s coaching in the Hornets and Tribe is another one. There were 8 Bees players who got over 20 points, one of them was Tribe which makes him worth a look in an EPL where affordable and available Brits are few and far between if you believe Coach Moria.
Tribe has decent size (he’s 6’2”, 194lbs) and apparently isn’t scared to get into the corners and mix it up a bit. Looking at what likely amounts to our 7th-10th forwards, Tribe will likely centre the 3rd line with Wiggins, Chong and Heron rotating on the wings depending on the situation/who is playing well. If what I’ve said above comes to pass then Tribe will take over that 3rd line centre spot from Tony Redmond. Whilst he won’t play the same way as Tony, having someone with that size able to be in the middle of the 3rd line, put the body about and defend well enough to not haemorrhage goals will be a good thing. The third line at the end of the last season was Redmond, Best and Wiggins which had a lot of effort but not much in terms of size and shutting other teams down. This is a sensible signing on that front if not one to set the world alight.
With one left to discuss tomorrow all we can do here is welcome Craig to the Herd from the darkside. You’re one of us now. He even has a hashtag already. #WhenCraigTribeGoesToWar to take over Twitter soon!
Banners On The Wall 