Ryan’s a good player!
With a mid-table side, he's an invaluable asset who knows where the line is and scores tries against the best teams in tough encounters. However if Warrington were looking for the next Jamie Lyon or Matt Gidley then they bought the wrong player.
That's not to say that Ryan is a waste of money, he'll be a good player for Warrington just perhaps not the player they thought they were buying, however, in fairness to Ryan and Warrington, he was the best option on the market, without going to Australia again.
His assets are, he has good speed, extremely strong, dedicated, loyal, he knows where the try line is and he is fearless in the collision.
What he lacks are the subtle, finer skills of centre play, his footwork is ok but not great, as a result, he finds it difficult to position his winger or to manipulate the defence ahead of him to create space.
This means that the final pass, often isn't on, and a try scoring opportunity goes begging, over a number of seasons this has become a psychological problem, as well as a skills and ability issue.
Ryan knows it is a problem, I have no doubt his coaches tell him needs to work on it, he will be aware of the criticism from fans, and he'll also be aware of the number of times, his winger throws his hands up in the air in despair. Sometimes in trying too hard he's pushed the pass and made a complete Horlicks of it so the next time he ignores the opportunity altogether, and round and round we go!
He's now either incapable of executing the pass or recognising when to pass/when to stick or more likely a little bit of both.
I think this is a result of poor coaching when Ryan was a junior and despite having good coaches, whilst at Wakefield, he's failed to progress to any degree.
The longer this persists that harder Ryan will find it to acquire those skills, it may be too late already.
Half Time
