Quote: Winslade's Offload "It's difficult to decide about Patton. He has a tough job in that he is a pivot and expected to create and score tries. But also he takes some of the last tackle kicks, the kick offs plus the goal kicks, so an awful lot rests on his shoulders. Fortunately he doesn't lack from self-confidence so I don't think he suffers from the pressure. But for me, he does seem to go missing some games. I watched him a lot at U19 level where players have a lot more time and space, and where his kicking ability was already at the level where he could march the team around the field. But while he had the ability, it seemed to come and go. By rights he should have been kicking those teams to death and dominating the play because he has a great boot. For me then, I can't quite reconcile his unquestioned ability with some of his performances. Agreed he is only 21 / 22 with 20 or so games under his belt, and yes it took Briers a lifetime to master his role, but I am a bit surprised he has not developed more quickly and made the HB role his own.'"
Has he been given a fair. Rack of the whip tho??? I don't think so personally. Him going missing in games is to be expected given his age and relative inexperience. He has hardly. We given a consistent run of games unforced due to injury and not meaning he will be dropped when someone returns to fitness.
Williams is a similar age to Patton but Declan is still a fringe player mainly used to cover for injuries, in by no means saying that he is as good or better than Williams but how much of where Williams is now is down to his coach having faith in him and sticking with him when he doesn't have his best game and also most importantly first team experience ? I think quite a large part of his recent development has been from his first team experience something Patton is just not getting with us consistently we will be looking at a 23/24 year old hb with 30/50 games under his belt to replace brown or gidly when they go ? By which time he will be so far behind other scrum halfs his age won't really be a viable replacement
