Correct.

.....sigh......

Mal Meninga would have looked average playing #3 for Saints last season. Shenton has been recovering from a near career-ending injury so far for all of this. We simply cannot judge Shenton as an attacking player based on his displays in a red vee so far. It is completely unfair and stupid to even try to. He needs to be given time to put the injury behind him and to start seeing regular ball in a consistent and competitive team. Then we can judge him as a Saints #3. Not before.

It also doesn't help that for the majority of last season we were playing an untried half back combination, either due to their age and experience with the first team, or through injury meaning new combinations were thrown together.

Finally, once Lomaskell had settled and we're going well, Shenton started going well too. Sadly we all know what happened in the Grand Final, and for me, this has set him back another 2 or 3 steps.

He has come back this season into a team struggling for form, and now it looks as if we're going to be playing with YET ANOTHER makeshift halfback combination, which will undoubtedly offer no help to Shenton whatsoever.

Bollox.



Nonsense. Even if we agree he's been starved of possession there's nothing to stop him looking for the ball. You see - that's what good players do.



It's true that he is recovering from a serious injury. But he's also had plenty of time to show [isomething[/i in a Saints shirt. So far he's shown nowhere near as much as Gleeson did.

He's not in the same league as Gleeson was as a centre. Thank god you outbid us for him.

This.

Like I said a little early to be calling time on him, but it's also true that to say that he is not in the same class as Big Mal or Gleeson when he played for Saints, from his current showing. But the standard of centre in GB has just fallen off a cliff over the years. Hence why Saints have been overseas for centres during the latter part of the SL era, or filling in with 2nd rowers and the like.

Newlove, Gibbs, Iro, Hoppe, Gleeson, Lyon, Talau, Gidley, Flannery, Gilmore, Meli, Shenton,

Quite right, because Meninga would have been able to use his powers of telekinesis to make sure the ball came out to his wing instead of constantly up the middle or to the left instead as actually happened all last year, wouldn't he?



But [ihe's recovering from a serious injury[/i.... He isn't yet capable of doing "what good players do".... [uBecause he's recovering from an injury[/u....



Last season he was settling into a new team in a new town and never got the ball. This season [i[uHE'S BEEN RECOVERING FROM A SERIOUS INJURY[/u[/i!!!!!!! HE HAS HAD NO CHANCE TO SHOW WHAT HE CAN DO PROPERLY IN A SAINTS SHIRT YET!!!!!!! Dear God all bleedin' mighty......

And of course he's not as good as Gleeson. No centre in the British game now is even remotely as good as Gleeson was as the game is at an all-time low for 3/4 talent. The comparison is stupid and meaningless - just the same as saying that Gleeson wasn't in the same class as Newlove or Connolly in their prime would have been 10 years ago. And Gleeson played for a great team that put the ball through his hands a lot, making it even more stupid and meaningless.

Meninga wouldn't hang about in the centre position meekly waiting for the ball like some school kid at the back of the class tentatively raising his hand to answer a question. He would [iDEMAND[/i the ball. And if it didn't come to him he'd bloody well rectify the problem.



He wasn't recovering from a serious injury BEFORE he sustained it.



Revisionist nonsense. I remember the Gleeson signing very well. I remember standing with PONNER and other Huddersfield fans at Knowsley Road discussing the transfer and them being somewhat bemused by the affair as Gleeson, whilst showing some good form at Huddersfield, hadn't achieved anywhere near as much as Shenton at Castleford when he was signed. Shenton had a somewhat indifferent final season but prior to that he'd weighed in with plenty of tries and demonstrated a fair bit of skill.

Gleeson [ideveloped[/i under Millward's tutelage. He went from flashes of good play (such as his first game away at Warrington where he demonstrated a couple of excellent sidesteps) to a fully-rounded centre. And he developed [iquickly[/i. And let's remember that Millward did not favour an expansive game. Under him we shifted from being a team that liked to use the full width of the pitch to one that targeted the ruck area. The evidence is there for all to see. Prior to Millward our leading try scorers (not to mention our most dangerous players) were the likes of Newlove, Hunte, Sullivan etc. When Millward arrived we suddenly began to emphasise quick play the balls, dummy-half dashes again and again and again. Yes, Sullivan & Newlove did get the ball - but the [icutting edge of our attack[/i was at scrum half, stand-off, hooker and loose forward. Our top try-scorers were the likes of Long, Martyn, Cunningham and Sculthorpe.

No centre, playing to the kind of conservative, rigid system Royce employed, getting the kind of ball Gleeson got last year, could have looked good going forward. None. Maybe he should have ignored all instructions, come off his wing and chimed into the line at #6 instead and snatched the ball out of Lomaskell's hands to keep you happy?



WTF????? He had no ball before the injury. He's been injured ever since it. Kind of by definition of what an injury is..... Huh?????



Long story short - Gleeson arrived as a second rate but best available replacement for Iro and developed into a top player over the course of a couple of seasons. Sound familiar to you at all?

I think it's pretty harsh to try and compare shenton to big mal and Martin gleeson. Big mal is one of the greatest players ever lived and Martin gleeson for all his flaws was world class at saints.

Shenton is just a average player, he's not a strike centre and he's not the best defensively, if we could replace then I would buy I can't see how we will replace him.

The comparison to Gleeson is flawed.

Gleeson came raw , cheap and largely unknown from a relegated side.

Shenton came as a test centre on a lot of coin after Saints outbid Leeds and the Pies.

Gleeson flourished Shenton has stagnated and that is being generous.

I thought Shenton was a great signing at the time. I was wrong.

THIS....plus.....

When he came to us he had had a good test series under his belt (the one where he was knocked out at Elland Road). He never looked sensational, but he was consistent and offered a bit in both attack and defence.

Am willing to give him this season to get back to where he was at Grand Final time last year.

Was a little concerned on Friday that when he chased (????) for the sin binning moment, as the pie gobbler kicked the ball, Shenton slowed down then once the attacker had got past Makinson, started to run again. Surely if he'd have kept on at full pace, it'd have put him a yard or two up on the attacker and not resulted in him floundering and as a result having little option but to impede him.

Regarding Gleeson, not sure he was moulded and improved as considerably as some are making out by Saints. He looked a pretty good player when at Hudds although there's no doubt he did improve....likely something (but not exclusively) to do with enjoying his time here and the quality of the team and play around him.

Also, Jones looks good but come on people give him a couple of seasons to get going!!!!!!!

We've got Shenton, we should support him.....until October 2013 at least!

Spot on

Shentons stats from Friday
8 tackles
6 missed tackles
4 carries
21 metres

Wigan made 11 clean breaks
Saints made 1.

I said it last year that shenton is weak in defence and got bagged for it on here. When I pm you the saints team last Thursday, you'll notice I put weak link in brackets next to his name.

He let a good few tries in last year.

On the subject of stats, i thought it was revealing that our two best backs were also our youngest players Makinson and Jones.

Jones stats in particular are very impressive for one so young

17 tackles only 2 miss tackles and 82 metres from 13 carries.

Discount the machine like roby with his 56 tackles. Paul Clough was the best of our forwards with 107 metres. The much lauded Soliola managed 41

Gleeson this,Shenton that,its like comparing apples and oranges,Gleeson was in a team with Longy and Scully working their magic of a pretty dominant pack,im sure if you were to drop Shenton into that team he would of done well.Shenton needs good ball to do something with and he isnt getting it.

Give over. The way you talk anyone would swear Royce played the most conservative gameplan in the history of Rugby League (how many tries did we score last season, BTW?). I've seen plenty of narrow teams over the years. And I've seen plenty of centres play well in such. I spent the best part of ten years watching the ARL precisely at the time when it was invariably a dour forward battle and any centre who received quality ball in space would be accompanied by a marching band celebration! Didn't stop them producing some of the best centres in the history of the game. But carry on trying to affirm a negative.



Revision. Revision. Revision. He had NO ball? He didn't receive a [isingle pass[/i? That's odd because I swear I saw him latch onto quite a few. Indeed, I've got the video to prove it.



Gleeson developed into a damn good centre within twelve months in a team that shifted its attacking thrust from the centres to the middle of the field. He went from a position way behind Shenton's at Castleford to one where he was twice what Shenton has lived up to so far in a Saints shirt. The notion that Gleeson was given as much ball as he could dream of is pure nonsense. In terms of attacking possession he was very much behind Long, Sculthorpe, Martyn, Cunningham and even Wellens. Hell - he wasn't even the primary attacking centre! And yet he still somehow managed to make a name for himself and go from effectively a nobody to the GB team. So far Shenton has yet to hit the form he showed at Castleford!

Soliola needs to think less about trying to clean his opponent out after he's passed the ball and more about work.

41 tackles from a player coming off the bench which included to try saving tackles is pretty impressive in my eyes.

Where do you get your stats from?

It's fine if you want one of your most damaging runners doing nothing other than tackling, I guess.

If you don't have the ball for large periods and then play a kicking game in the 2nd half then id guess he'd have to tackle.

We weren't [ithat [/ishort of possession.