After Wire fans posted a bucketload of predictions three games into Kevin Penny's career claiming he's a dead cert to better the achievements of the greatest wingers in the history of the sport (Boston, Vollenhoven, Sullivan, Offiah etc.) the only response can be: EPIC FAIL!

The lesson here is simple: when RLFANS members with keen judgment tell you they are "concerned" by a player's defence you cannot sweep such worries under the carpet whilst chirping "He's faster than Offiah and scores tries for fun!".

Kevin Penny ....


.... Brimah Kebbie!

Enough said frankly

This is one sad, sad thread.
Think a couple of you need to grow up

Hopefully, the Wigan club and supporters have taken this into account when it comes to Shaun Ainscough. Luckily, we're being pretty realistic and patient with him at the moment.

Ainscough is a much better prospect than Penny was though. It was obvious from the start that Penny was no good.

Hull Fc will take Penny, they want better than Calderwood.

I wouldn't say I'm a great fan of Penny, but he's 21 years old. It's not as if he's the finished product, and neither is he to blame for some of the hype that came his way.

Penny has talent. He now has a good manager. If he doesn't make it fair enough, but do we really need threads like this singling out young British lads just to score cheap points against opposition fans.

It's less to do with trolling Wire supporters (which is, admittedly, funny) than injecting a dose of reality into the heads of knuckleheaded fans of all description who see a junior play a blinder in his first few games and automatically assume he'll go on to win MoS and captain GB to an Ashes victory.

The "Penny for GB" fiasco that followed his debut highlighted the sheer tactical ignorance of a considerable percentage of RL supporters who were quite prepared to select a player who COULD NOT DEFEND IN ANY WAY against the most tactically ruthless RL team on the planet on the offchance he received good service and managed to outsprint his opposite number!!

I mean, Martin Offiah - who in his final season was a better player than Penny will ever be - often went entire games against the Kangaroos with little more than scraps to live on. And when he did get the ball it took every inch of his ability to do something with it. Oh - and Offiah had better service than any GB winger's seen in the last five years or more.

SL's work is cut out for it trying to increase the throughput and standard of juniors when a weighty chunk of fans are totally incapable of objectively analysing the strengths and weaknesses of a player. Perhaps it's also a reason behind our crap coaches ...

To be fair, Penny made the GB training squad that first year, and also the Dream Team, so it wasn;t just the knucklehead fans who were predicting a big future for him.

The facts are that he has gone backwards (his defence wasn't as exposed when he first came into the team, a certain Test centre, who should have been nurturing him, has IMO done a lot of damage to his career), but he is working hard in the 2nd team, and under Smith he has every chance of doing well in the game.

With the ball in space he could be frightening, some of the tries he scored were genuine class. We have had fast players before, this isn;t just about pace. If he can work on some other areas of his game, then he can have a good career in RL. Look at the stats page for him, he doesn;t have an amateur team to his name, he came to the game late. He has plenty to lear, I'm happy to see him get that chance.