Re: Rumours : Sat Oct 14, 2017 7:00 pm
the flying biscuit wrote:
what about all those coaches that said Luke Gale "didnt have it" when he was Dec's age?
seemingly not good enough for Leeds after leaving their Academy for Doncaster (2nd or 3rd tier rugby ???) then playing consistently in the bottom four of superleague with London and then pretty much similar with Bradford. he then reached the heady heights of mid table, with Cas....
....until this year when fans that have an eye for a player would have gladly seen Moran pay big money for him....
Decs had one ordinary season, along with seasoned International and former NRL players.....
if you want a scapegoat now Penny has gone Patton isnt the one .....
anyway ive heard nothing on rumours..... nothing new there....
seemingly not good enough for Leeds after leaving their Academy for Doncaster (2nd or 3rd tier rugby ???) then playing consistently in the bottom four of superleague with London and then pretty much similar with Bradford. he then reached the heady heights of mid table, with Cas....
....until this year when fans that have an eye for a player would have gladly seen Moran pay big money for him....
Decs had one ordinary season, along with seasoned International and former NRL players.....
if you want a scapegoat now Penny has gone Patton isnt the one .....
anyway ive heard nothing on rumours..... nothing new there....
All this arguing about Patton, I wonder if actually people on here are generally in agreement. Those who are supporting him - do you want him to be first choice next year or do you want us to bring in a new halfback and keep Patton around as a squad player? And those who are saying he hasn't got it...if we got a new halfback would you be willing to keep him as back up, or do you think we have a better back up in the squad?
We had similar debate a few years ago about GO'B. With GO'B I was more in the first camp - I liked him but saw him as more of a back up. With Patton now I'm in the second camp - I'm not convinced but I'd keep him around.
Sometimes when a young player comes in, you can see he's just not able to handle the step up to SL, but Patton came in to what was then a side competing at the top end with the associated pressure and he didn't look out of his depth. He played in the Grand Final and did OK. Just seemed able to handle himself, like SL was comfortable. That's the encouraging side to Patton.
The downside is he goes anonymous in games, not good for a halfback. It's one thing having a younger player with raw potential but makes mistakes but when a player doesn't seem to get in to a game it's a problem. Last year Patton's reputation on this board improved when he was out of the side and we were losing games and regressed when he was in it.
One thing is a cast iron certainty though - if we don't sign a new halfback and go in to the season with Patton as first choice, if we lose a couple of our opening games the main complaint from the fans will be why did we not bring in a halfback...
