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.

I'll spare you the full lesson (there's plenty of books on economics down the library if you want to find out more), but to precis: it's what we learned people call SUPPLY AND DEMAND. If you want to win things in SL you have to pay big money for 3/4s that would have been unremarkable mid-table fodder worth a quarter of the amount 10 years ago, because there's nothing better about right now. If we go for the "value for money" alternative then we will be playing against teams who haven't, and whose slightly above average backs will be skinning our VFM ones on a regular basis. We will indeed then end up capable of nothing but the utter mediocrity that all the clueless kneejerk numpties think us already incapable of anything else but. In the land of the below average centre, the slightly above average centre is king. Deal with it.

And you can carry on with the unfounded BS if you like, but Shenton, when fit and on form and getting ball, is far batter than 95% of the centres in the league right now. Deal with that too.

slighty better than average on a test international's salary.

regardless of the quality of other similar options available, they will be paid less than Shenton.

If the club are looking to ship him out, they obviously don't feel he's worth the money being paid to him.

You think a player you've classed as "above average" is in the top 5% of centres in the league? Top 50% maybe

I do think there's a good centre in there, we're just not getting it out.
I wouldn't be suprised to see him go well at his next club.

And good luck to him if he does, I don't hate the guy, but neither do I rate the guy.

Less expectation and pressure?

His injury has not helped him, but he's just not improved on where he was last year. His confidence is shot but there is nowhere for him to hide playing for a team like Saints. Some players can step up to big clubs, some can't. Maybe he's one that can't?

If we are letting him go, then clearly Brown is unconvinced of his ability.

Brown and a few thousand others. He has got at least one fan; but would anybody really want Northampton saint on his side.

All this spent force stuff. We have to realise too that we are only 5 points off the top of the league. Could be 3 off 2nd place by the end of the weekend. I know Leeds is not a gimmie game, but a win against Leeds will certainly mean we are still in with a decent shout of top 4.

very true, and without a coach as well, not too bad

Aye I've had a week of being down now it's time to get up to my normal optomistic heights. Saints for the GF.

I've told you before about going through my bins... Christ man, but you're obsessed... Go and stalk some other poor sap now please - I'm just bored of your utter inanity now.

No, no, no... You're getting this all wrong... We're the worst team in the world, ever, and are going to struggle to make the top 8 for the next 30,000 years. The kneejerk numpties like Ex1 say so after all. We only become the greatest side ever that is going to majestically dominate SL for the rest of eternity [u[iafter[/i[/u the next win we get against a top side, not before.... I thought you moderators had to be trained in dealing with this kind of clueless Saints' fan blow-in-the-wind opinion swing before being inducted?

Nah

Little bit worrying that we are pinning all our hopes for future success on Nathan Brown, who appears to have no more idea than rush on how to beat the goons