Did anyone else watch this the other night? I thought my Sky box had frozen at one point, but then I realised it was showing Wellens trying to cover a chip over the defensive line.

i saw it on the superleague show, same problem though! He's becoming an embarassment to himself now and destroying the great memory we have of him in his prime

Brilliant.

The problem with this try as well is that he was horribly out of position, which is unlike Wello. He wasn't covering or just made a tackle, you can see that from the clip if you watch closely, he was out of position but even still had a 20m start on the Hull KR player and still got burned.

Wello has been a brilliant player and a loyal clubman. The only embarassment for me are some of the comments here. He doesn't deserve such disrespect.

and thats the problem.

Wellens wasn't horribly out of position and the criticism is unfair. Wellens was defending from the scrum on the left wing outside of Foster. Saints defend from scrums without a full back, tactics I don't agree with.

Hull KR exploited this superbly and Wellens would have struggled to turn and keep pace even in his pomp.

Quote: R&C "Wellens wasn't horribly out of position and the criticism is unfair. Wellens was defending from the scrum on the left wing outside of Foster. Saints defend from scrums without a full back, tactics I don't agree with. Hull KR exploited this superbly and Wellens would have struggled to turn and keep pace even in his pomp.'" superleague.co.uk/sltv# 1:55. It wasn't from a scrum and he was out of position, a Full Back should never ever be there regardless of what tackle it is.

Quote: R&C "Wellens wasn't horribly out of position and the criticism is unfair. Wellens was defending from the scrum on the left wing outside of Foster. Saints defend from scrums without a full back, tactics I don't agree with. Hull KR exploited this superbly and Wellens would have struggled to turn and keep pace even in his pomp.'" superleague.co.uk/sltv# 1:55. It wasn't from a scrum and he was out of position, a Full Back should never ever be there regardless of what tackle it is.

Sorry, everything he did was right and he can run the 100m in 10 seconds flat, his past achievements are responsible for this level of playing ability.

I'm sorry Backrow Saint you're wrong. It did come from a scrum. Watch the full try highlights on the Superleague site and you'll see. The bit you saw was the 1st tackle from the scrum were hull KR attacked to the wing Wellens was defending. From there Wellens has no alternative but to hold his position on the wing or risk leaving a huge hole up the touchline.

The problem is trying to defend scrums with your full back on the wing and thats not Wellens fault.

Fair enough. That's an awful coaching tactic then.

Missing the point. Debate his performance if you like but no need for the disrespectful tone. He was unlucky not to bag a brace on Sunday. Of course you only saw the tv clip no doubt.

Read any of my posts back, I love Paul Wellens, that doesn't mean I can't think hes past it though. Yes, I am in fact the only person in the UK who owns a tv.

It's standard practice for sides to defend scrums with no fullback, otherwise the attacking side would have a free overlap.

However, the highlights would suggest that the try was at least one tackle after the scrum, as it begins with a play the ball, so ordinarily the full back should be back in position by then. If you look at it, though, the play the ball is on Saints' left, and Foster is not on his wing as he is one of the markers. The defenders around the ruck clearly haven't noticed this, as noone has moved to make up the numbers on the blindside and Meli is left stranded. Wellens is rushing up to plug this gap when the kick goes over, which is why he's so far out of position. He took a split second decision to fix an issue in the line, and HKR were smart enough to capitalise on it, but the root cause as far as I could see was that we were caught napping at the ruck.

Oh yeah I know the Full Backs defend in the line, I've played at Full Back a fair bit but I always backed into position after the first or second tackle.

If that's the case Wello was unlucky with the positioning but still incredibly slow getting to the ball.