I don't buy this specialist centre arguement.
To coin a phrase you are what you do. As you rightly point out Pete, Carmont made the exiles team. But so did Meli, so he should get equal credit fo making the team and probably would have played centre had Matt King's missus not had a baby and so had to pull out of the team.
Yes Meli gets caught in defence sometimes, but this weakness is far less impacting on the team than his brain farts on the wing. In the centre he has cover either side and as Catalan showed on Friday most teams will hit the combination of Sia, Shenton, Gaskell and Makinson rather than risk a smashing against Meli. I really like the Meli Foster combination, it's an effective partnership both in defence and attack. Apart from a huge jump on Foster by King off a perfect kick from Briers, I don't recall Foster getting caught outunder the high ball or a kick behind like Meli used to struggle with. When a ball goes up t that wing, I'm no longer 50/50 in my head as to whether we will cover it or not. I just expect it will be dealt with, which make a nice change after 4 - 5 years of, oh dear whats going to happen from this kick.
