What no one has yet mentioned is that on Sunday we started with positions 1 to 5 being British, I don't think we achieved 1 to 7 in the game but for most of the 2nd half I was as confused as the players as to who was playing where.

It ended up with Grix at 6 so it was 1 to 8 then..

But didn't JD go into the centres.

Have tried to keep out of his but i do agree, it seems someone is"weekly" target and this week its Ryan.

Lets just look at other players who we are paying and not getting any value from shall we.

I think the highlighted area is the fact the wing man doesn't get the ball passed by adam, this has to be addressed, as an ex I was always taught to feed the ball to the faster player once you drawn in the defense

Ryan



Yes mate i know the problems and thats down to JK to sort and improve that part of Ryans game, just think we are a little quick to pull the trigger at times.

Who would you say isn't giving good value?

Try working it out, pound notes v minutes on the pitch.

Drew?
Blanch?
Latu?
Petersen?

Blanch, well that really can't be helped with that sort of injury.

Petos gone anyway.

The other two, well i'm not too sure we are getting value from them, all players pick up injuries but some seem to have more probs than others.


I think times up for both of them.

why compare atkins to shenton ?

surely ryan is competing to be 1 of the 2 top british centres in super league? why not compare him to a centre in 1 of the teams above us and not somebody playing for a team who were bottom last year and over hyped by the inbreds this year







fact is that atkins doesn't serve his winger, and never has



cost us points now against leeds twice and cas...

2nd row of the main stand maybe.

I bloody hope Atkins has a stormer tomorrow night.

It might shut people up.

I'm sick of all this negativity.

C'mon Toby......show everybody what you can do!

dont be silly!!

and so do I,
there's one thing that you shouldn't take for granted your never irreplaceable, so I hope he doesn't think he can win the game on his own

We all know Atkins is great at running with the ball and not passing he is a 2nd row !!!

Rumours of him coming to Leeds can be squashed now, due to Leeds signing Brett Delaney from Gold Coast Titans on a three year deal.

think ryan had a great game. made a great try saving tackle. his defence was spot on couldn't fault his effort, and he did pass , saw it myself. well done ryan, great way to answer your critics.

Two passes and a couple of dummies could almost make him unreadable for the rest of the season.

Read Ryans interview in the Aug Rugby League World mag and he says he will end up in the back row himself.

The interview is light hearted but is a decent insight into Atkins's character and he comes accross very well.

I think we need to appreciate his good points and trust that he is working to improve himself wherever needed. we would be a poorer team without him IMO.

Played pretty well last night in my opinion, didn't really have the oppertunity to do much more than he did. Very few mistakes and his enthusiam seemed good, if he played like this for the remainder of the season then I dont think you could argue - but his place would be under threat next year on this form if Evans comes and Gleeson is fit.

i disagree. over the course of the season atkins has played pretty well, it just seems to me that his mistakes are both highlighted and live in the memory of fans for longer than other players. people moan about his involvement but it's not as easy for a centre to make an impact as it is for a forward. gleeson doesn't get involved as much as atkins for my money but i have not seen one criticism of him for this on here (of which i'm glad).

people seem to assume that he is not making any attempt to improve the areas of his game where there are deficiencies, why not give hm the benefit of the doubt?

tbf to Ryan he played a lot better this week imo and was probably starved of ball but made good yards when in possession and seemed more generous with distribution to his wing man

I think Gleeson's main weeknes is in defense - he seems to be unable to judge when to come infield to defend and tends to leave us exposed out wide. That said, I reckon his work rate in defense makes it harsh to critisize this weekness). This seems to be improving, but to be fair to him it was mainly when he was playing on the wing. I think if we have the choice of Gleeson, Atkins and Evans for next year I personally would choose Gleeson and Evans at the moment (althoug to be fair this is based on limited viewings of Evans) I don't think that making Ryan work for his place is a bad thing either.

Evans is a natural centre with the skill set required, whereas (as Jonh commented on) Ryan is an athlete who seems to have chosen RL as his game without having any real descernable skills - he relies heavily on his physical presence - not that this doesn't mean he could be international class in time of course. Hopefully the competition for places will bring out the best in Ryan and help him mature.

I rate Atkins higher than Gleeson. Gleeson can have a good game, and then the next you hardly see him.