If Patten is weak at tackling why not move him to the wing when were defending and then move him back to fullback when we are attacking. He could switch places with Mark Henry.

TBH I'm unsure whether I worry more about his tackling or his failure to be able to catch a bomb and the more I think about it the more I like the idea of two FB's, would give the oppostion a lot more to think about and could change the modern game into something more interesting than the 50+ hammerings we witness in games week in week out plus O/T I'd also like to see the 3 points for a win and bonus point introduced into SL.

I think that FB's ability under the high ball is pretty old hat these days as most bombs are contested by centres and wingers, with FB's taking only a tiny percentage compared to the past. Look at Steve Hampson. I don't think he ever dropped a high ball. I certainly never seen him drop one that I can remember. On the other hand, his tackling was awful and his attacking play pretty good.

Ok, the General's tackling hasn't been great but I stand by my previous post as it being secondary to an extra attacker.

I'm really in favour of those 2 ideas.
As for using 2 FB's, that could be workable, but it'd probably see off the 40/20 to some degree. Therefore, I'm not sure if that would be a good thing.

Surely if there is one less player in the defensive line then teams will exploit the extra space. Fullbacks are only effective in defending 1 on 1 line break situations, if the team that make the break have support they are about as much use as an ejector seat in a helicopter.

Yes thats possible but the defending team has to man-up and not allow any extra space, working a little harder shouldn't be a negative (note Catalans recently when they have had a man sent off!) and when a line break does happen you have double the second defensive line to cope with a supporting player.

As for bombs to FB's TB, Luke has received his fair share this season! ( I wonder why? )

Having only just seen this post, I can honestly say I am suprised it has taken so long. the situation is becoming simmillar to the Gary Jack years,where critisism was just brushed away as "your wrong" if you didn,t fall in line with the licking. In fairness Ithink any player needs two seasons to settle,so lets judge next year,but remember when Jack came to Salford he was without doubt the best fullback in the world,but was a disaster for us,but no critisism was allowed,let us judge on what we see,and no be led by the nose.For me I expected a lot more but am willing to give him more time,but not to much.

I'm confident now Matt Parish is on board Luke Patten will come good.

It's always hard for any overseas players when they first come over.

Patten is a class attacking full back but of course when he is the last line of defence things have not always gone his way this season.

Personally i have not been a fan of Patten and think he is very over rated and he had under rated the quality of super league at times. Yes as mentioned above his attacking skills and stats are impressive but the defensive display(yes i know those in front of him were not much better)on friday was a joke and we would have been better playing a very good friend of mine from the north east at full back !!

I find it amazing that we get ourselves a top quality FB and people still find cause to complain. We are, currently, not a top 8 side and for some reason Patten is supposed to play like Robo-fullback and play the perfect game every week? Without going over old ground, I see where people are coming from but you are never gonna get the perfect player. As it stands, I'd rather have Patten with his current stats than many alternatives that could be playing for us.

As a progressive side we should be looking at Patten with a glass half-full mentality, not the other way around. Given a choice to swap his attacking capabilities for a fullback that could only defuse bombs and tackle line breaks, I would stick with his current stats.

The best fullbacks in the world are attacking fullbacks, not defence machines. This is 2011 not 1973.

I respect your opinion "TheButcher" but i also find it amazing that people can just overlook his defensive weaknesses just because he came here with a reputation. For me I just don't think he's been up to the task, his defence is a real sore point and needs to be vastly improved on, in an ideal world we used him like American football, we'd take him off when defending and bring him when attacking. Perfect!

I also understand where your coming from with the 2011 point, but correct me if I'm wrong I thought defence was a big part of a rugby league players game after all they've said it before 1973 "defence wins you games"!

If you watch more in depth, you'll see he organises the pack infront of him even when on his own line, its not up to him to stop a 2v1 when they break the line.

He also has a great pass in attack which can be a strong advantage to your line.

What about about the dropped balls from kicks of any sort which come in? Defence isn't all about tackling when playing fullback its also about defusing the danger from kicks, which 7 times out of 10 he doesn't do.

And as for your second point, where has anyone on this thread said any different?

Defence is a big part of RL in the modern game, I personally think that the one position that defence has actually declined with regards to importance is Fullback. It's just not as important as it used to be. Granted, in an ideal world fullbacks would be both defensive powerhouses and attacking geniuses, but it rarely happens like that in the real world. High kicks are fielded 90% of the time by wingers and centres. Fullbacks are like extra second rows or centres coming into the line. Their roles have changed from being predominantly defensive in nature to being almost exclusively an attacking player.

Patten has 15 assists. That's 60 points not counting conversions in a side where every point counts. Currently 9th out of the top 10 in assists in the whole SL. I would suggest his contribution outweighs the negatives

I know I'll sound like I think he's Neil Baker or something (which clearly I don't BTW) but just to add to his defence, it's easy to pick out the full back for mistakes as I've said before, but let's look at one of our other golden balls players, say Stef for instance , quality player on his day but compare his stats to PattenPatten - 15
Ratchford - 10

MetersPatten - 1873
Ratchford - 1230

OffloadsPatten - 24
Ratchford - 14

Tackle BustsPatten - 15
Ratchford - 10

Clean BreaksRatchford - 11

Missed TacklesPatten - 33
Ratchford - 42

ErrorsPatten - 21
Ratchford - 24

PenaltiesPatten - 4
Ratchford - 14

Not having a dig at Stef (although he has made the second most errors for us and given away the penalties - think of that next time you say "bloody Jewitt again" ) the point I am making is, as I've said above it much easier to to pick up on what a full back does wrong than most other positions.