People were saying there are no centres or wingers we can realistically get now as we cant or wont pay a transfer fee,not there are non around

To stretch your analogy then, do you think it would have made much difference to the Titanic's fate if the putative Mr. Hartley had started frantically bailing with a tea cup instead? I hope to God that the likes of Swift and Jones do develop into top-class players and allow us to bin the likes of Shenton in a year or two, but they are a very long way away from that finished article yet, and show me 20 great teenage players and I'll show you 1 or 2 great SL players 3 or 4 years down the line if you're lucky. I prefer not to bin my proven, experienced class players just because they're on a bit of a down in a badly coached and struggling team until I have found proven quality to be able to replace them with if that's all the same to you? Build a backline around the U20s next season as you are apparently so eager to do and then we really would see a team struggling to make a top 8 finish...

Correct, Wigan tried it around 2003 - 2005 with Briscoe, Hodgson, Aspinwall, Brown and Robinson. We all know what happened next.

Last season we almost had a full backline of u20s at certain times and yet we managed to get to another Grand Final, an achievement we don't look remotely capable of doing this season with almost a full senior team available to us.

Yeah but at the time they were all turd. Most still are.

On the subject of Shenton while he has played the majority of his career at either 3 or 4 centre he played a number of games on the wing at 2 and 5 for Castleford.

Personally think his height, pace and running style are better suited to the wing.
Centres need to be able to create space for the wingers by agility, guile or strength. He imo possesses none of these attributes.

What he does possess is decent pace, he isnt lightening, but is significantly faster than Gardner. He also is a good broken field runner in that once in space he has a good swerve and evasiveness. Unfortunately at centre we dont see this because he doesnt have the space to get going and doesnt have the strength to bust tackles and agility from a standing start to create something.
Shentons height should also prove an advantage dealing with kicks in both defensive and offensive situations. We have already seen Saints utilise this aspect of his physique on occasion. If played on the wing we could use this even more.

The main worry for me would be how Shenton handles the workrate dealing with kick returns.

Who said anything about building an U20s backline? I didn't. But top marks for putting words in my mouth. Your problem is in laying the blame for Shenton's entire Saints career - pre and post injury - [ientirely on the shoulders of others[/i. [iIt's the coach's fault (Simmons and now, presumably, Cunningham and Rush). It's his team-mates' fault. He gets no decent service from others etc. etc. blah. blah. blah[/i. In your do-lally world Shenton is completely free from all personal responsibility. But his TEAM MATES & COACH - they CLEARLY have a responsibility to give him the ball on a silver platter as often as he chooses. Which is entirely ridiculous. All players - no matter how bad their service (debatable in the case of Shenton - anyhow), coaching etc. must do the best with the cards they are dealt. And Shenton hasn't.

On the other hand - kids like Jones & Swift have taken precisely the same measly hand (according to you) and called, bluffed etc. their way to the Oceans XIII table. Perhaps their performances will drop off. Who knows? But until such time I'll pick my FORM over your (sic) "reputation".

Yeah, they lost patience, got rid of them all, signed Moran, Orr, Calderwood, Vaeliki and almost got relegated.

talk about jumping out of the frying pan into the fire......at least we have made that mistake and learned from it.

on their day saints are a match for any team with the current squad as was seen when you beat Wire and Leeds

No... but ocassionally getting it might be nice... Jones has played on the left so sees the ball. Shenton doesn't and hasn't. And is still [iclearly [/iinjured. And Jones, all hyperbole and usual Saints kneejerk supporter BS aside, hasn't exactly set the world on fire yet (not surprising given his age/experience). Shenton towards the end of last season (when he was settling down a bit and pre-injury) was a far better player then Jones has approached being yet.

Saints (rightly or wrongly) spent a large amount of money ordaining Shenton as our #1 centre for the following 3 years and then never bothered passing him the ****ing ball. I'd still love to know how exactly anyone could have expected any different an outcome to his Saints career considering...

All this should change when Brown comes in. Hudds attack is more balanced and I would expect him to organise both our attack and defence infinately better than our last 2 full time coaches have.

I agree. It's a shame that he is going without ever getting the chance to shine thanks to our troubles at halfback.

Northampton_Saint wrote:Saints (rightly or wrongly) spent a large amount of money ordaining Shenton as our #1 centre for the following 3 years and then never bothered passing him the ****ing ball. I'd still love to know how exactly anyone could have expected any different an outcome to his Saints career considering...

They dont pass him the ****ing ball because he is ****ing useless. I hope that answers your problem.

I agree. It's a shame that he is going without ever getting the chance to shine thanks to our troubles at halfback.

Yet more tripe from her who should remain indoors.

Let us get one thing straight regarding Shenton or any other player for that matter; a good player will make his own openings and not have to rely on others making them for him.

Not sure what you're laughing about in that particular quote? It's completely true.

It's a team sport, selected by a coach. Every player in that squad is reliant on others to one degree or another for various things, including whether they have openings to exploit.

Absolutely. But surely you can't argue that good players don't create their own opportunities when nothing is on?

If you are talking about creating opportunities within a match then of course certain individuals can create opportunities but not all positions within a rugby league team have the same opportunity to be creative. If the ball is being distributed to the left all the time, for example, how then can Shenton create something? Is he supposed to leave his channel, fly to the left, intercept the ball and then do something? Ok, so I'm being flippant, but in all seriousness what are the right edge players supposed to do if the ball isn't passed in their direction to begin with?

As I say, it's a team sport.

Yes, you're right... He should have pushed Roby out of the way and lined up at dummy half every play, or constantly stood in front of Gaskell/Hohaia in the line so he could have snatched the ball off them. Or maybe he could have developed powers of telekinesis to make the ball go his way now and then instead of having to huddle together with Makinson for warmth on the right wing all lonely and ignored by the rest of the team?

You sir, are talking spherical objects. Just quietly accept your preposterousness and move on with the rest of your life, eh? You'll feel better for it, trust me.

I've just checked the stats and the ball is without a doubt distributed considerably more to our left flank than our right, about 2 to 1 in fact. However, Shenton has had 96 carries, 22 of which coming from dummy half leaving him with 74 carries which probably were in the centre channel. Even though he is getting less ball then the left flank you would expect him to be able to show something with those 74 carries, which IMO, he hasn't. I'm not a Shenton hater but I'm struggling to see what he brings to our side that Josh Jones for instance can't match and better from his few showings.

Centres live and die by their supply - they stand well away from the majority of the play and rely on the ball coming down the line to them - they can't generate something from nothing - if they get no ball then they can do nothing. I can't believe that this fundamental aspect of the game needs to be explained to some supposed Saints fans, but clearly it does....

Stick Mal Meninga or Paul Newlove in that #3 shirt for the last 18 months and the kneejerk numpty brigade would be calling him an underperforming waste of money and rejoicing in rumours of him being shipped off to any other club we could find right now instead.

Don't be so patronising when your counter argument is absolute rubbish. See my previous post, he gets enough ball to do something with. He's done nothing so far.

According to that marvel of all things statistical, Phil Clarke, after our Wakey game when, let's face it, we could do pretty much what we wanted, 40% of the ball went to the left, 10% to the right (and yes, the rest down the middle). That's an atrocious differential in a match when Shenton and Makinson could have made loads of hay had they actually been passed the ball. As it was, they just got frostbite.


But even if they were in the centre channel, whereabouts on the pitch were they? I have no idea whether 96 carries is good, bad or indifferent but I would assume when compared to right centres in other teams his carries will be relatively low given the percentage we actually pass that way.


Josh Jones will have been well protected by the senior players around him. I remember Foster saying that about his team mates when he first started. Don't mistake a good start with an excellent centre. He will have been carried by the team, just as all our newbies have as and when they have been introduced.

You don't think the extra class of Meninga would have won us the GF? I think you're wrong. I think if Shenton had stayed fit throughout the match we'd have won that GF, and he was struggling to do anything attack wise all year.

Maybe so, but the fact that the team have been more willing to pass to a rookie that needs protecting with 4 games under his belt than a highly paid international centre rings alarm bells.