To be honest, I think the Penny debate could run until page 400 and we'd solve nothing. As speccies, we seem to have split into two groups where he is concerned, and I think it's that devisive to be honest, one camp are watching his performances and looking for mistakes, the others watching and looing for improvements in his game, and to if you like 'understand why things are happening' say. Last night, I thought Kings position was woeful, I thought Penny was stuck in the old 'rock & hard place' situation, and I bet if we watched the footage together, every error that you'd ping Penny for, I'd give you a reason for why I believed the error was attributed to King.

I've no problem with split opinion, what irritates me is when folk are so matter of fact about things on here, in this instance about Penny, you end up with statements like "We all know that his positioning is terrible, his running the ball out is awful, and his tackling, well ....". It's a far, far more complex debate than that, with many factors to throw into the mix, and no doubt we're missing some.

The way I see it, if the King/Penny partnership isn't working, which there's a feeling it isn't, folk seem inclined to pass Penny 80% of the blame for this, and 20% to King, and this is wrong. At worst it's 50/50. I think at times, his lack of physicality makes him easy pickings for folk to just make sweeping statemenst about him like 'he can't tackle' without looking at the progress he's made.

Spot On! How long can we wait for King to regain the form he sowed in the NRL and on his debut at Wire, hope Jimmy Lowes has the answers I dont.

So you are all agreeing that the King/Penny partnership doesn't work, regardless of who is to blame.

Surely the best solution therefore is change that.

As for Penny I can't make my mind up. I hold my breath in excitement when he gets a bit of space - its great to see a winger with such pace. Equally I hold my breath when the opposition fling the ball to his wing, but not quite in the same way.

The key problem is that whilst the kid is learning and improving we are dithering around and ending up exposed. If you want to be a serious contender for silverware this is unacceptable. I like him, I like his passion but I think I would rather he did his learning elsewhere for a while. For his sake and ours.

The Ade Gardner dissallowed try, Penny was too close to Matt King which created the space for Gardner to score but fortunatley for us a fraction of his foot clipped the line, if Penny had been positioned better Gardner would have had no chance of crossing as the option and space wouldn`t have been their for saints to attack.

Saints 2nd try scored by Ade Gardner, Penny ran in field to try and tackle Leon Pryce then all of a sudden he stopped and back tracked but by then it was too late as he had left his wing and that created the space for Gardner to score. Matt King was poorly positioned as well but we all know he is a defensive liability, if Penny thinks that their is too much of a gap in the defence then its his job to shout and wave players across, he shouldn`t have charged off his wing and come as far in field as he did.

Our left side is a defensice liability as well as being a virtually non existent attacking threat, Matt King is shocking but Penny is just as bad as and he can`t hide behind the rookie tag forever as he is racking up some first team games now and to me he doesn`t seem to be learning a great deal. Its a worrying combination that we have on our left.

I definitely agree about the 2nd one, he made a mistake, and realised a split second too late.

As for the 1st one, it is a tough one, as when he did stay out on his winger, Gidley just walked through. You often see wingers squeeze in at the corner, we do it a lot, so that is just part of the game.

i'm not criticising penny, but its the truth that the only time penny will do anything is if he has empty space ahead of him.

get johnson on the wing for safety and stability.

Has it occured to anyone that the last few games of last season Kevin Penny's defence was tough and well executed. There's a difference in the team now. The difference being Louis Anderson.

These are also my main concerns about having Penny in the team.

i've said this elsewhere and i'll say it again, i\'ll concede he's nowhere near the finished article, but i do not remember any defensive problems in his 10 or so games in 2007, i don't remember him being caught out of position or looking shakey or any other coaches attacking and exploiting him which you would expect, rookie player, debut season, he'll get targetted and shown up.

i've seen it so many times before with wire wingers over the years, kettlewell, eckersley, will cowell in his first couple of seasons, jamie stenhouse.

Save for the game at knowsely road where he got switched to opposite meli and knocked around a bit, it didn't happen, is it a coincidence that this perception has arisen since king joined the club?

Again, if he were that bad it'd be bloody obvious from game 1.

Please tell me your not suggesting what I think your suggesting?

I suggest you watch his tries against Saints at home last year again.

if i recall correctly he did have some defensive frailties in 2007 but nobody cared because he was scoring tries and he was a rookie.
i totally agree with king inside things appear even worse and as stated
in most of the constructive posts it is the left side at fault not a witch hunt for Penny.