It's tempting to compare the two because of their pace, but early doors Ashton seems to be a rather different animal. First off he can be trusted at FB. I don't think anybody would be bothered about him leaking tries if you swapped him with Ratchford. He looks a bit awkward going up for the high kick but you can see by the way he attacks the ball that he expects to get it and that he can mentally block out opposition runners. His action and timing are not as smooth as King or Ratchford but that will come with practice hopefully. He already seems to have learned about nicking the ball and I suspect it will not be too long before he can get his body under the ball to snuff out a try. Then there is his tackling. You would expect this to be a weak point because of his build, but he is actually quite aggressive. He doesn't just wait and ,accept the runner, or go for his legs, he seems to be up for the confrontation. I don't think we saw these features with Penny, although he was much better at dealing with the high ball when he returned to us from Swinton.

It's too soon to say, but I think his confidence, attitude and all round ability seem to be couple of steps up from Penny.

Imo ashton gas 2 things he needs to work on,(that I can see) getting his feet set under high balls, im more confident in him jumping to take a ball than him taking an easy (ish) one whilst on the floor, his feet are like Michael flatleys as if he's uncertain in his judgement, hence some awkward catches and collapses.

Also he seems to get caught at marker in the tackle quite a lot, puts him self at first marker and isn't getting back in position ASAP.

Lee Briers said this very thing about him.

Didn't Austin try it for Mamo late in the game last night? Or was that just Mamo being over-enthusiastic and nearly getting to the ball?

Well I think he has the advantage, like Chris Hill did, of coming in somewhat 'battle hardened' from the championship, in the way that players who come up from the Academy don't. He will have had old pros trying to take his head off and spectators shouting at him that he's poop so he will have had to learn skills to survive and thrive.

But its a small sample size and we don't know how effective he will be when teams have tape on him. Blake Austin for his first few games looked like Man of Steel. He's been good, on and off, since then, but he hasn't dominated like he did in his first games.

Austin has been superb since the restart, better than the start of his first season IMO.

Ashton, Mamo, Charnley, and Austin are all really quick players, Mamo and Ashton are about the same speed. That's frightening pace in the squad more than i remember seeing at the same time for us. They're great players aswell, with those in the team we're very Dangerous aswell. Gelling is a fast powerful Guy aswell so we have speed across the park.
I genuinely think Lineham will have to fight to get back in the team and may struggle to do so for quite awhile.

No better player in the league when he’s on it.

Totally agree...Tommy doesn't get in this side at the moment.

Isn’t the major difference that Penny had no real grounding in rugby league so was a real novice.

Yeah I would keep Mamo, King, Gelling and Charnley... it’s rather harsh on Lineham as he’s our top try scorer.. But Mamo has really shocked me how improved he’s become over the last few months.

I agree. Lineham has really let us down by getting suspended over something so stupid and has to fight for his place back.

I like Mamo, he’s smart and a character. Ashton is smart too, and that can only be good for the team.

I think that is a good point, Ashton has played a fair bit of rugby at local level, has had a year in Oz and of course a full season at Championship level. But I think the point Sally is making is 'we have been here before'. On top of that is the problem that when your side wins 9 games in a row your players become immortals, whereas back in March most of the side needed to be binned, ie supporters swing erratically between hype and doom.

We certainly don't know yet exactly how good Ashton is likely to be. Agreed he will have bad patches. Agreed he will become sussed out as coaches and players spot his attacking preferences and defensive weaknesses. But then quality ageing rockstars like Ratchford still manage to thrive, and perhaps more importantly it's because they continue to develop and change just as Westwood moved into the pack and Mike Cooper grew into a high quality prop.

I still think Ashton is a different animal to Penny. I guess everyone will remember the try Penny scored against Saints when we moved the ball from behind our own sticks and he scorched away down the touch line to score (is it on Youtube somewhere ? ). The memory plays tricks of course, but I think Ashton is probably even quicker (pre-injury and weight gain certainly). But Ashton is a lot bigger than Penny - a good 4 inches, and that makes a big difference when you are are collecting the high ball, plus his extra weight makes a difference in the tackle as well. Add that into the level of aggression and determination he shows and I would say he looks a significant upgrade on Penny.

Just as a last point I suspect many of us are comparing Ashton with Penny 2017 when he had finished developing rather than when he broke into the team in 2006 ( and was hailed as a future International). To me at least, Ashton already looks a better player despite his naive attempts to pass the ball when he is lying on the ground or his dodgy positioning at FB.

For me it really is the smarts that sets him apart. Yes he’s fast, but he’s got to have the brains to know where to pop into the line to be able to make use of that speed.

It looks like he is learning a lot from Austin and Ratchford.
I remember in the early days of Ratchford playing full back on a more permenant basis, he took quite a bit of stick for dropping bombs and losing possession of the ball by carrying it in one hand. It probably took time for Ratchford to read our defence and see where we're short on numbers and gain the confidence to communicate that to the defence. I recall watching Matty Russell at fullback and he would appear to just point to his left ot right randomly but I would rarely see him barking orders at the line.

If there was just one thing that I would like him to do that shouldn't take years of learning and that is to recognise when Daryl Clark is going to jump out of dummy half and go with him. We still see Clark go and break the line with a 1 on 1 with the fullback and nobody within 10 yards of him. If Ashton can master that he is almost guaranteed 1 try a game just from that.
He does have a bright future ahead of him and he is similar to a number of young full backs shining in the NRL that have blistering pace

Yeah this is exactly right.

I'm mostly concerned about the negative impact overhyping a young player has on the player, because it makes him a target for the backlash. The problem with overhype is it irritates people and creates a reflex instinct to want to cut them down. Remember when Ed Sheeran came out. I thought yeah he's ok, he's trying to be a bit different, I quite liked his stuff. Then he was on every radio station non stop and everytime you sat down in a pub one of his songs came over the radio and you just think turn this annoying poop off, I hated him with a passion. It wasn't his fault, I was just reacting to the overhype.

We don't want to make Matty Ashton the Ed Sheeran of Wire by crowning him as a superstar while he's still a first year SL player who's in the stage of his career where he's entitled to make mistakes without being judged by the standards of a superstar.



I agree he looks like he's got better credentials than Penny did at an equivalent stage of his career although Penny did get in the SL dream team and had at least half a season of SL performances when he was a star winger, which Ashton hasn't done yet. I think Penny was quicker than Ashton when he first broke through, and he was really well balanced on his feet so he could swerve at speed, which is why everyone got so excited as that was so rare. One of the sad things with the Penny story was he had some injuries early on and the edge seemed to come off his pace around his third season and he was quick but not fastest-in-the-league pace after that. But Ashton seems stronger and more confident in his decision-making than a young Penny.

The other good sign with Ashton, is you can see he's good without fans having to make excuses for him. With Penny, you would hear stuff like "yes his defence isn't great but Offiah couldn't tackle either", or "he's getting blamed for Matt King's mistakes" or "Cullen/TS is destroying his confidence". Once you're at the point of trying to make excuses to claim that a player really is a top class prospect, he probably isn't as top class as you think. Ashton just seems to be good, without excuses.

I was distinguishing the 2 on the basis that as I understand it Penny had played virtually no league experience when signed up. This meant he was making all his learning mistakes in the spotlight, hopefully Ashton has made a lot of his mistakes at a lower level.

Perhaps unfortunate timing given his display at the weekend. I don't think he played well against Saints, made a few errors against Salford too.

Are you happy with him being moved to fullback? When I saw him play for Swinton he was mostly at centre. He was outstanding there at that level. Give him early ball and he'd give you much more threat than you have currently. He might make a world class fullback eventually, but I'm not convinced it's the best option. His pace is outstanding, but the other aspects of playing fullback aren't really there yet for me. He seems to make your attack a bit clunky and perhaps you'd be better with Ratchford at 1, Widdop and Austin in the halves. He can still backup any breaks and give you an option to move it wide early.

For me sorting that 1,6, 7 out properly is the key to you winning SL this season. I'd personally move Ashton to centre or even the wing to give him exposure but not perhaps put so much pressure on him in a key position.

No judgement of a young player should be based on a performance in the conditions that prevailed on Saturday.

Whatever his age, he made some very basic errors. As Saddened says, exposing him in such an important position was probably Price's biggest error.

He needs to be rested or, more importantly, Ratchford needs to go back to the position where he is an actual international.

He's young he's gonna make errors, Look at King, people were calling for his head and he didn't seem to be able to pass the ball and wasn't very good. Now look at him would you drop him from the squad...no you wouldn't.
I like Ashton and he's only gonna get better so we need to sign him long term i think, is he a better Fullback than Ratchford....hell no he isn't.
Ratchford shouldn't be moved from fullback unless injuries require it. I get we need Ashton playing and improving but changing players positions to odd positions to accomodate him is stupid.

With the benefit of hindsight it was probably a mistake to play him in the semi final in those conditions.
Probably an unfair comparison but "that pass" by Billy slater in the world cup final 2008. I suspect slater never tried that again in the following 11 years.
Time will only tell if the young fella will learn from games like the one on Saturday.
One thing I have noticed is that every time a ball is kicked to Ashton it makes the kick chasers work really hard to make sure there are no gaps whatsoever. Players are aware of what he can do which results in the defenders burning a lot of energy. If there is a forward that watches the kick sail over his head and is a bit slow making it up to the line then it is a risk
He still has a lot to learn but he looks like he is learning fast.

This exactly. It's crazy that we seem to be having to crowbar an international full back into the side at 6 or 13, in order to give Ashton a game.

Blunt truth is, with a fully fit squad, at this precise time, Ashton struggles to make the bench.

Ratchford has played in multiple positions throughout his career. It's not as though he was a perma fullback until he got shifted out of position yesterday.

When we signed Ashton and then re-signed Ratchford to the end of 2022 what exactly did we have in mind? Is Ashton just going to sit on the bench till 2023?

Or was the intention to move Ashton out of position to accommodate Ratchford?

If we drop Ashton now or start shunting him around then what exactly have we learned since the Kevin Penny situation....?

Until Ashton is the better of the two at full back, then I'd suggest we stick with the international there, wouldn't you?