For may money WHY IS HE IN SL? yet another example of what is wrong in SL yes defence text book but does he give us anything that a lot of young hookers dont or hookers in the Championship Ellis being one seen nowt from Poore to impress me yet either other than hitting Bailey
SL is lossing decent young players to Oz and we continue to bring players over who add little to the squad WHY

You don't see what Poore and Ellis bring to the team....really....I mean REALLY!

SL may be losing the odd player to Oz but come off it, it's little more than a trickle. WTRLFC aren't losing any who could possibly claim a spot right now. The players I think you are talking about are not joining NRL teams but bush teams. This is fine for them but don't kid yourselves that these teams are anywhere near SL class because they are not.

Truth is most of our youngsters simply are not good enough and limited though Aiton may be we have not produced a homegrown hooker in the last 5 years who comes close to him.

I'm all for promoting young players who are good enough but I'm not for promoting them for the sake of it either. To say we are losing players is a bit of a myth and to blame the Aussies like Aiton and Poore for all that's wrong in SL is absurd.

did say decent young players and yes i agree not good enough yet but if they are never given the chance they will never be good enough I dont blame the Aussie imports for ALL that is wrong in SL but it is a part of it

Agree.

To suggest Aiton shouldn't be in SL is absolute rubbish imo, complete joke.

For me Poore's been decent enough all season and has done his job.

To start scapegoating foreign players is just lazy and predictable for me.

After Mathers Fox and Aiton we ought to have Smith as the next scapegoat unless we have Raleigh who as one poster remarked had a bad game, this despite being missing for the last 4 games and was obviously not fit, we should probably take all the players' in turn every week to criticise, at least that way nobody will feel left out.

To suggest that Aiton is not SL quality is absurd; one of the daftest things I've seen on this forum in a while, and that's saying something.

I would be happy to wager that if he was available, Aiton would be on the radar of 75% of SL coaches as a player who would add value to their current squad; it's bonkers to suggest otherwise.

Really - one disappointing loss over Easter and some people start to go loopy.

I think that's harsh. Smith is a quality player and recognised as such, however his pass was unquestionably to blame for the second Hull try.

I don't understand why people cannot criticise players without them being shouted down for making said players scapegoats.

I presume he was taking the proverbial with that comment.

Personally speaking I don't think there's anything wrong with criticising players as long as it's constructive but I don't like this OTT player bashing that can go around. Especially when it's completely unwarranted, for example like what's been happening with Paul Aiton.

Just my opinion, but I reckon Aiton is the best hooker we have had at Belle Vue in a generation.

It's a bit of a moving feast, he doesn't technically hook in the same way that Alan McCurrie or even Billy Conway had to, his defence in traffic is phenomenal, but I think he's part of a second slower than he should be on ball distribution. He's certainly up there as a tough guy though, tremendous work rate. He's made a decent start on the field, I hope he stays a good while and progresses.

He would be even better coming on midway through the first half after a stint by a more 'controlling' style hooker.

Every time I've seen Aiton running hard at the line he takes plenty of stopping, If the guy was a foot taller he would make an excellent prop. I personally think he lacks too much pace and quality ball distribution to be considered a top SL hooker, I just wish he would run from dummy half a lot more instead of taking the lazy option. Love the way he defends just needs to show more quality at the PTB.

His ball distribution isn't what it perhaps could be. I'd expect this to improve though, he's a full time player.