The short answer to that is we don't know. I feel confident in saying that, this time last year, you'd probably have been asking the same question about Sarginson though.

The truth is that Gelling has all the attributes plus a desire to win that is second to none. His work ethic is also exemplary as can be seen in the massive metres he makes week in, week out. Let's face it; it's only a week or so ago against Brisbane that he was arguably the best player on the park, up until getting injured.

There is only one real question mark hanging over him and that is consistency but, at the moment, the same thing can be levelled at the majority of our team. Will they come good? I think past seasons suggest they will. Will Gelling come good? Again, last season suggests he will. Does that mean he's the long term answer? Well, I reckon that's a moot point anyway as I don't truly believe that SL has ANY guaranteed long term answers anymore.

Sorry but can't agree here. There is one glaring question about him other than his lack of consistency - Can he pass to the winger????

People are overlooking this rather important factor because he makes so many yards. Let him make the yards in the second row or even at prop.

I'm beginning to think that he just isn't a centre.

Quick passing movements stop dead when it gets to him. He is starving Josh to death, and since Josh is one of our most potent weapons no wonder we are struggling. (I'm not just blaming Gell by the way, because Bowen must share the blame too)

I don't think that's fair on Gelling.

Goulding played with Sam Tomkins.

Sam used to draw all of the attention on his overlap runs, leaving Goulding with an easy pass out to a free Charnley on the overlap.

We still run the same system, but Bowen provides nothing like the same threat - he often passes way before he has committed his man, which renders the move pointless. Often when Gelling gets it he HAS to run with it because both he and Charnley are man marked.

What he did last year that he's failed to do this is draw in two tacklers on those runs and offload it to Charnley - but again that's something Goulding very rarely did, so it's a bit of an unfair comparison in my opinion.

You're entitled to your opinion but to say what Goulding did was easy and laid on a plate for him is a bit rich.
Sam ain't playing for HKR yet Goulding is still laying on try's for his winger.

Classic draw and pass centre play is a pleasure to watch, but seems to be dying out in our game, sadly.

I fully agree about Bowen not providing the spark in attack that Sam T did. And yet, he used to run some great lines in tandem with JT at the Cowboys. For a man of his experience, the lack of creativity in attack is a big disappointment.

Especially as (like Sam T, if you will) he's never been the best defensive fullback in the game, and always had the odd error in him. With Sam, we could say that the tries he makes and/or scores in attack more than made up for it. With Bowen thus far, not so at all.

Nope. I'm definitely still here.



And you are still too small.

Surely Ryan Hampshire has got to be worth playing in the halves now.

Mmmm...missing after your thumping by Souths and back again now Wigan have lost. Strange that!



Just for the record, do you think Amor is too small?

Well you're entitled to your opinion, of course, but according to the stats ([urlhttp://www.superleague.co.uk/stats/player_stats[/url) he had the 7th highest try assists of any centre in superleague last year with 11, and that was in his first full season as a centre! Anecdotally I've seen him get away some miracle balls too so the raw ability certainly isn't missing.

If you check those same stats you'll also see that in only a couple of games did he fail to make over a hundred metres and was often up around 200, including a massive 269 against Leeds. He was also in double figures in scoring tries himself (Same as Joel Moon).

Given it was his first full season in the team and has spent the majority of his time here unable to get a game unless he was turning out for the 1st team, I'm not exactly sure what you expected from him. I would suggest he made a pretty good fist of it and, certainly towards the back end of the season, was arguably the form centre in SL.

I'm not arguing he's the finished article...or anything close for that matter...but to say he 'just isn't a centre' based on his one (successful) year in that position is, frankly, stretching a point! If you're referring to THIS season, then hardly any of our players would be good enough so, again, it's an unfair assessment.

I don't know, any more than you do, whether he will push on from last season. However, if he does, he'll once again be at the top end of SL centres. Is that good enough for Wigan? Well, that's an entirely different argument!

I always respect your opinion Phuzzy. You present a good case. He was very poor last night. Although as you rightly say so were most of the others. I like my centres to be like Lyon, Gidley, Gleeson and Goulding for example. I don't see Gell as being the answer for us. Though he does have his good points undoubtedly. I think he is really a forward, second row and ultimately prop.

I used to really love watching Matt Gidley play. He was a *proper* centre. A dying art, in the NRL as much as here. Jamie Lyon is one of the few nowadays

I must say i feel a bit sorry for matty as he has never been anything but a normal run of the mill scrum half i think we need to play hampshire at 6 as he has that extra pace and skill over williams

I think we need to give Williams a chance in his natural position of 7 and Hampshire at 6. They were the positions they played in together for several years and this is about the only combination that hasn't been tried so far this year, probably because of Wane's fixation about Hampshire's best position being full back as a Mk2 Sam. There may be reservations about their lack of experience, but Matty Smith's experience/ organising ability have not been evident very much this season. In mitigation, he has been playing behind a beaten pack and has not had a regular half back partner, but he has brought precious little to the table and his lack of pace when compared to both Williams and Hampshire is a crucial factor in my opinion. I would like to Smith revert to a bench 9 to spell MM - very much doubt that will happen, but that is what he used to do. Let's give it a try with 2 speedy half backs playing in tandem and let opposing teams worry about that, rather than us worrying about what defensive limitations Hampshire might have if played at 6.

I think hampshires limitions amount to not being able to catch a rugby ball

Caught plenty difficult ones v Hull KR

I think the real problem with Hampshire is Wane, who is so insistent that Ryan will play fullback that it seem to have become a standoff (no pun intended).

It is an utter disgrace that a young player who has played all his junior Rugby at standoff without being given at least a few months in his natural position when he makes the first team is being told that he either plays fullback or not at all.
It took an emergency the other week when Williams broke down in the warm up to a match for Ryan to be included at standoff and since then when Bowen has been in the squad Ryan hasn't even been in the 19.
I was even told the other week that he was informed that if standoff was the only position he wanted to play he could go to Workington on loan for the season.

What I find strange is lack of input and comments of certain posters on here when something controversial comes up.

I agree totally. Hampshire should be given a chance at 6, preferably with Williams at 7. For Wane to justify not picking Hampshire at 6 a few weeks ago because he had not impressed while playing at full back beggars belief. He may never really impress at full back because he isn't a full back!
Also, when did Williams become a 6? He played most of his junior rugby at 7 ( with Hampshire as his half back partner at 6), before becoming a bench hooker last year, again a position he had never played before until last season and which understandably took its toll on him physically. He is then given the number 6 shirt - squad numbers may not always mean everything, but they are a pretty good indicator of a coach's intentions.
This all goes back to the recruitment or lack of it these past 18 months. No real replacement/bench hooker, lack of size in the forwards, no consistent/reliable goal kicker - all of which should have been addressed.

I watched West Tigers and the Titans earlier. They may not be the best two sides in the comp, but oh for a kicker of the quality of Pat Richards or Aidan Cezer.

You only get kickers of the calibre of Richards,Jim Sullivan or Botica once in a lifetime if your lucky !

Matthew Ridge was a fair old kicker too.

I don't know. Just about all NRL sides, and most of the top SL sides, have a kicker of comparable quality to the two I mentioned.

Gale's place kicking on a windy night showed us what we are missing.

Unfortunately Matty has been given a year to improve his place kicking to get it near Super League standard, and it hasn't worked. Sinfield, Dureau, Gale, Griffin, Brough, the new bloke at Hull KR, Tickle, Sneyd and whoever Saints use (mainly Percival) are better. This makes Matty just about the worst in the league.

I've been a big supporter of his and argued that he should be given a go, and with practice he'd be ok. Apart from a couple of decent conversions at Widnes it hasn't happened. And I don't really know why, because he has a lot of bottle. But the stats are starting to stack up, and I don't see a big improvement over time, if anything he's stayed the same.

Also, it's not his fault there isn't anyone else. I do believe that this extra responsibility has affected his game. I think he needs to be taken out of the firing line. Play Hampshire at full back or stand off and give him the job - would be my solution.

I agree that Matty as goal kicker simply isn't working, but I'm not sure putting a young lad like Hampshire in the team and then giving him extra responsibility is the best option either. I also thought Matty would improve, because he does seem to have all the basic skills to be a good goalkicker, he just lacked consistency which should have come with practice. But over a year on, anything more than 20 yards either side of the sticks you expect him to miss.

Completely agree. Giving the added responsibility to Hampshire isn't ideal at all. Going back to Josh doesn't seem like much of an idea either.

We are in a pickle, and I advocated signing a Stand Off for this season and someone like Danny Brough (my first choice) or Luke Gale, who is a decent player, would have solved two problems for us IMO.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with playing a youngster in an unfamiliar position. I'd guess that most players begin their first team careers outside of their favoured position. Adaptability is an essential quality for any first teamer. Besides, no youngster *deserves* the right to any role until he's proved to his teammates that he possesses a) the right attitude and b) something to offer.

When the kid has passed the test and earned the respect of his fellow players - then the coach can begin thinking about adapting his talents to a particular role. Not before.

I do not attach any blame to Matty Smith personally, as he is obviously trying his best, but he is never a first choice kicker. The importance of the extra 2 points in a tight and crucial match cannot be ignored:

In the Challenge Cup Q/F against Castleford Smith missed a relatively straightforward conversion ( ie it would have been for Pat) about 15 - 20 yards to the left of the posts after Faz's try. Instead of 6 -6, Cas were still leading 6-4 and Wigan were playing catch-up rugby. Some may argue that Wigan still had time to score another try and win the game, but it must have been a great psychological boost to the Cas players to know they were still in the lead, when they should have been 6 - 6.

And even more crucially in the Grand Final, he missed a penalty from 25 -30 yards out just to the right of the posts after about 60 minutes. And the ball didn't even go dead, so Saints ran it back rather than a drop out on the 20. I honestly believe Wigan would have gone on to win the game if they had drawn level at 8-8 - instead they were still chasing the game, Saints eventually went upfield and scored from a kick.

As Aboveusonlypie says, Smith must be one of the worst kickers of all 12 Superleague teams (and probably most Championship teams. The guy from Leigh was knocking them over from the corner in the pre-season friendly!). I repeat: Smith is not to blame, but surely IL and SW must have realised at the end of last season there was a chronic weakness which has to be addressed. He has had over a season to become more consistent and hasn't managed it.

It is not too late to "splash the cash" if the salary cap limit has not yet been reached, which apparently it hasn't according to some posters who seem to be in the know! A big older head pack leader (prop?) and a goal-kicking half back would be the top of my shopping list!