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.

I agree. But I think that was mainly because he was defensively sound. What we replaced him with was a disaster.

God that GF still breaks my heart. And I don't think we're going to get another shot at it in a while.

Nah. They were passing to Meli and Foster last year too. Our tendancy has been there since we lost our first choice halves. And maybe Robes too is a little too prone to passing to his left? Either way, we all identified it as a problem last season as well so IMO it has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of Jones.

Good point, I hadn't accounted for ball down the middle.



96 carries is an okayish amount of carries, but it's the 74 that's more important as scoots from dummy half don't really count in the purpose of this debate. If you compare it with say, Darrell Goulding, he has 94 carries after excluding dummy half scoots. As you can see Goulding has more carries but it's not significantly more. I would have expected to see more from Shenton with the ball he has received, I'm not asking for Jamie Lyon standards, just a glimpse of what we thought we had signed.



This is very true also, however, with just under a half of the amount of carries he has 16 tackle busts to Shenton's 10. Youngster being carried or not, that shows to me Josh Jones is more likely to beat a man than Shenton is at this point.

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.

Writes the font of all rubbish.

Using your analogy, the only reason Shenton showed any (if any) promise last season was because he was a newbie and was carried by his team mates.

At the start of the season, Shenton was injured.

So at that point Wheeler was having to run the right channel.

Now I recall that Salford game and I also recall serveral good runs from Wheeler down that channel. Just because you get less service, does not mean you have no chance to create. I'm sorry but Shenton has shown less in all his games this year than Wheeler did in his 1 or 2 games in the same channel. I'm not even sure that Wheeler is the future at centre (I'd like him to be, but I'm not nailed on for that).

Shenton is defensively sound but unspecatular going forwards, I don't think he is poor going forwards because of the ball he does not get, it's because of the ball he does get and what he does not do with it.

I don't care what the stats say - I watched Shenton like a hawk last season in the 8 games I saw live and he got the ball passed to him while on the run out wide a grand total of 3 or 4 times in all of those games combined maximum. Meli received the ball in similar situations at least 2 or 3 times a game. He isn't an Iro-style monster who's going to break tackles from a standing start, nor a Lyon (or even Wheeler)-style trickster who can pull something from out of nothing. He's a good, honest, meat and potatoes, solid running, defensively very sound centre with a bit of size and pace who is very effective when he gets the ball on the run and in space. He is not effective used from dummy half or first receiver as has been the sum total of his lot at Saints so far bizarrely.

You have to look at how Shenton positions himself as well though. Hardaker at Leeds is very effective at getting the ball and trying immediately to beat the defence with footwork. He is, however, almost completely at sea when it comes to setting up Ryan Hall. Having watched him play its not because defences are always sliding that way en masse, but quite often because that is what Hardaker is intent on doing before he even gets the ball - Ryan Hall would seem to be the last thing on his mind virtually eveery time. He needs to get over this or he'll end up a Kirk Yeaman and not the excellent centre he could be.

I compare that to Jamie Lyon, who I watched tear the Broncos a new one last week. He ran absolutely brilliant lines all game, and tore Jack Reed (generally a very good defensive centre) apart. Virtually every time he got the ball he made sure all options were open to him, which in turn made the defence start to stand off him. A sort of virtuous circle of attacking centre play, from a guy who isn't that big (or quick any more).

The point is that a centre can make a huge difference to what they do with the ball by how they position themselves, and what they look to do with it. You'd bet money that if Shenton were tearing opponents apart when he got the ball, Sts would be trying to ship it to him as often as possible - just as you did when you had Lyon. If you pass the ball right and it almost always ends in small yardage, you'll tend to focus the other way.

That sums him up perfectly, and shows why Saints (apparently) are looking to offload him.

But why when there are so precious few other centres available in the league who quality for even the "good and solid" tag? He might be little better than average, but when your only other available options are less than average then you need to keep hold...

But why you ask; plain and simply he is not VALUE FOR MONEY. To be brutal, it would be very hard to sign a worse that would be on half his pay.