I beg to differ. See his 'chase' for the length of the field Hull try for proof. He is nowhere near as quick as his frame suggests.

Well that's 2 centre spots up for grabs. I reckon we could only feasable fill one from within in such a short turn around. Jones is only 2 games in, unless people are advocating leaving him in long term rather than a short burst of games. Well that is also what people advocated with Foster, Lomax, Gaskell etcetc. You need to pace the young lads into the team otherwise you get the over hype of recent years of players with potential being accelerated into a team with no experience around them.

Lets face it our back line has
Wellens, Meli, (some now saying shenton), Gardner, due to retire or move on in the next year or 2 years.
We should not be throwing youth in to every spot, it would end up with our back line having Wheeler as the most experienced player. Drip feeding one or 2 in alongside more experience players would provide a better balance (IMHO).

The fact we've only ever played with one out and out centre since willie talau left many years ago was always going to be a problem if our one centre got hurt.

The young lad at London looks a very very good player, he's fast, great feet and is more than holding his own at the moment.

I've been very impressed with young josh jones. He's not looked out of place at all and is physically ready at 18 years old for super league.

I've just got a feeling that jones is going to a top player!

Heard he isn't happy. I'd have him back home though. Was at Old Trafford last year, and he was going well until that injury

The Hull board seem to think that Jordan Turner (the guy who burned Shenton) has signed for a club in gods country for next season as its closer to home.

If Shenton is off contract at the end of this season, i would certainly look at replacing Shenton with Turner.

Shenton is on a three year deal

He looks speedy to me. He was also on Roby's shoulder for the bombed try scoring opportunity recently. Roby was going full whack and he isn't slow.

Question re: Shenton's retention is still very simple. Who do we replace him with? There is no centre in the British game not already signed up to big contracts any better than (or even remotely as good as) him. The British game is at an all-time nadir as far as 3/4 talent is concerned. Shenton might be a fairly mediocre player by the standards of Saints #3s and #4s past, but an absolutely fantastic and irreplaceable player given the game's current setup and talent pool. Any possible replacement we could sign would inevitably be a step down from him, at least in the short to medium term. He's still clearly suffering from the injury and was becoming a vitally important player in Saints' defensive line before it - we've got little choice but to keep playing him and hoping that he recovers that standard of form and that the injury doesn't permanently hamper him, and to make all possible attempts to resign him if he does.

Shenton has been a disappointment for me.

If you are a centre who offers very little in attack then you need to be a fantastic defender. Even when on better form I thought his defence was overrated, and at the moment he's a genuine weak link in our line.

Northampton Saint, you either underestimate the current crop of British three-quarters or overestimate their predecessors. Warrington, Huddersfield and Leeds each have a pair of English centres that I'd have over Shenton. Your point about availability remains, though. There wouldn't be any point in letting Shenton go if we couldn't replace him, but he isn't providing value for money at the moment and any sort of new deal would need to reflect that.

I agree with this.

I'm pretty shocked how poor he is in defence, I always thought we was solid in defence but he's a weak link and when you miss tackles in the centre it can be costly.

His attack is pretty poor also, unless he's put in the clear then the is little chance of him beating a man. Hes not strong enough to break a tackle and he doesn't have a step.

The problem is getting another centre to replace him as the ain't many available.

It says everything about centres in the British game at the moment that the best one out there is still probably a 32 year-old who's been mostly a shadow of when he was at his pomp for over 7 years, who has played a handful of games the last couple of seasons and who can't hold down a first team spot due to rampant personal issues. Very, very depressing indeed.

Lets face it has Shenton put in any memorable performances since he joined Saints?
He is a run of the mill player.

He was doing ok at the end of last year until his injury, i'm willing to give him more time to get over it

But nothing more than ok. At no point so far has he reached the potential he seemed to offer at Cas. I don't think anyone thought he'd be the next Paul Newlove. But there was EVERY reason to believe he'd hit the kind of performances that, say, Gleeson did prior to brain explosion and transfer to Warrington. Right now he's nowhere near and shows few signs of turning things around.

Which brings us neatly back to Keiron & Mike Rush. Do they have the experience and ability to coax Shenton back to his best? If not and we have to wait for Brown the rot might be too great to overcome and Shenton is effectively finished at the club.

Until we can get better quality ball out to the right it doesnt matter who we have their if the service they get isnt to good.

Shenton was OK in the Leeds game, I was not going to make a judgement on him too early this season. Last year was his settling in year and lets face it settling in he did far better than some do in their first year.

eg Perry.

So far he's had more service this year but still seams to be lacking something even on last year. However he has a 3 year deal, so worse case senario he will be ok for one more year. I hope he can turn it around for himself and our sakes, but if he cannot, then that means we may need to go shopping for a centre in 2013.

Whilst we have Wheeler and Josh Jones, I would doubt that both will seal a centre spot, it's possible but if that happened it would be very similar to having 2 young halfbacks left to fend for themselves.

With Ade and Meli due to retire, you could end up with a real derth of experience in the wing and centre spots. I can see us long term filling one centre spot and one winger from within and one centre spot and one wing from buying in. Where from depends on too many factors, such as overseas quota, Shentons form and salary cap.

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.