Poor Service, simple as!

Speak for yourself, some of us pointed out what we were getting even before he had made his debut.

Mat King played in an excellent Melbourne side where he didn`t need to be a creative centre, the Storm had Inglis and Slater joining the line out wide to do the creating and making the overlap where more often than not it would just leave Matt King with a run in.

When he played rep RL for NSW and the Kangaroos it suited their system to have a big strong finisher out wide that could use his size to barge over from short range along with using his height to get on the end of kicks and generally finishing off moves, the Australian test team and NSW have always had an abundance of creative players in the backline which would compliment Kings size out wide.

His defence has always been poor which is another one of the reasons why he was out on the wing at rep level, he charges out of the line too much looking for the big hit and more often than not he will miss and leave his winger totally exposed with an overlap, he also likes to go walk about but when your surrounded by some of the worlds best players you can get away with that in the NRL and at rep level but you can`t get away with it when you have some inexperienced players around you along with some average ones like he`s got here.

At Warrington he is an average player in an average side, i would have Michael Shenton over Matt King any day of the week.

I wouldnt like to defend against either of King or Bridge but i would prefer to defend against King because Bridge would more than likely stand me up through pure footwork and make me look foolish(Which is what Jamie Lyon is very good at - This is not a comparison BTW). If you hold your ground or advance on king you have won because the footwork is not there to the same extent.
As somebody else has stated King is straighth up and down, a bit like Senior with the difference being Senior is often facing a retreating defence when he comes crashing through. Senior's Half backs and other runners create doubt in the defence. Our halfbacks are not carrying the ball so the defence does not have to worry about them. We are creating absolutely no doubt in the opposition.
If King were to play centre again it would have to be due to an injury / loss in the halves so Bridge could go to 6/7. Bridge carries the ball well and an opposition defence wouldn't know if he is gonna run or pass which would benefit King

People can say we don't use him that well, but I think that's a poor excuse for some of his form.

With a winger like Penny outside him, he should have been able to take advantage of uncertainty in the defence, and creating space. Unfortunately, the defence soon worked out that he didn't have the pace to beat them himself, and he didn't have the vision to put Penny away from distance, so he became easy to defend against.

From 15-20m out, I do think he is still an effective player, and FWIW I don't think he is as bad as many make out, he just isn't doing anything special for us.

To look at some of his stats for last year's contribution, he still scored 11 tries, and assisted 9 (although I think his assists were pretty standard rather than anything creative like Gleeson or Gidley). He made more metres than either of these other two centres though, maybe we use him too much like a battering ram.

His defence has been the biggest worry, but with Bridge as his centre he does look more settled, unfortunately Penny has had to take the fall for this to happen.

No. I meant to say precisely what I said. He is not as good as we thought he was.

He's been average at best in well over a year since he signed for us. Hardly 'overnight' well, unless we're talking around 360 odd nights.

He's slow, and doesn't have a step. He doesn't seem to have any attributes to his game that set him apart from the average players.

Average, is probably the right word to sum him up.

He was never world class either.

Some very good posts in this thread, and I agree with a lot of what's been said.
Just one point I'd add - last season King admitted that he was embarrassed by his own form, so whatever your thoughts on how we've been using him, he knows himself that he's been underperforming.
Question is, what's he going to do about it?

I remember early days last season Vinnie anderson would join the line late on the left hand side from time to time giving the half back options of passes to Numbers 5, 4, 11 and 13 or to go himself. You throw a fullback into that lot and you have a lot of options. I have not seen those sorts of numbers in attack for a while now.

Is it not there or am I just not seeing it.

No, these days we like to use numbers 8, 10, 15 and 16.

Some players only look good in a world class team, stick him in the manly team and he would be a world star again but in the wire team, no offence he does not have the quality he used to have around him.

Well can he not become a more selfish player at warrington,
just get the ball matt,
head down ,
and bleedin well run........

But then he also doesn't have the quality up against him either, so it is all relative.

There have been plenty of times where he has been in a two on two situation with Penny, one of the fastest players in the league on his outside, and he has done balls all with that. Brent Grose could make plenty of space for his wingers. It is not down to the players around him, it is down to him.

King is a top class player he has proved it in the past,but now he has let hisself fall down to the standards of all the other players around him.


lets face it warrington are no melbourne storm as much as i want us to be were years behind them and really it proves it.


i recon the training is nothing like he was used to in aussie land i bet it takes the really.He getting paid a very good wage for all.

look at it this way would he walk into the australia team now? or even the melbourne storm 1st team?

No chance i douubt it he could have a good game in there reserves


wot u think

I think you are bang on the button.

Matt King is obviously not as good as people thought. You can't say he's come down to our level, that's just rubbish

. Players like Gidley and Barrett stand out in any team. King hasn't got the skills

he's a big strong guy who is effective in the physical, grinding style they play in Australia but we don't play like that here, and it doesn't suit him as much

Maybe we should make him do a morning on the bins.

Give him a reality check.

As mentioned previously, King didn't make with two or three clubs before joining Melbourne and Craig Bellamy.
Bellamy got the very best out of King knowing where to play him and how.
Previous coaches had failed and Warrington's coaches haven't succeeded yet.
If he returned to Melbourne and Bellamy he'd be back to his best in no time.
How long is left on his contract?

Rauhihi springs to mind.Comes over here with the tag of world's best forward.Whats happened since then?Turned out a big bag of cack.

Just another failure in the long list of failures in Dire's pathetic recruitement policy in the past 10 years or so.

King is playing under a e coach who can't get the best from him.

King in our league will excell at wing rather than centre.

When he was at his scoring best he was able to run at a mis-match in size. Her we have him at centre against big centres/2nd row.

Teams are aware of his rep & he's buried more often than not (some of this is due to slow ball from hsi halves.

King cannot defend 1:1

Hey he's been here 12 months we'll have coached a lot of the talent out of him.

Matt King has 2 years left on his contract after this season.

Someone mentioned the training in an above post. When I spoke to Matt he said the Aussies treat training as a 9to5 job. I guess here we think they are tired after a couple of hours

Obviuously we need a balance but then again it works down under

He's not surrounded by the same quality that he was at Melbourne, it's a team game remember.

Either that or he's like Samson and his power is in his hair.

Rubbish. King playing poop is Kings fault and no one elses.



He wont excel at either because he isnt interested though you are better off sticking him on the wing as he just isnt a centre.



Bobbins.

King is an established Aussie player and the mismatch should be in his favour more often than not yet he never seems to outperform anyone he is opposite.



Teams are aware of Gidley yet he isnt cr@p. Teams are aware of Gleeson yet he isnt cr@p. Teams were aware of Lyon / Hape / Vainikolo and yet they werent cr@p. King being cr@p is Kings fault not anyone elses.



Are you sure thats not the fault of the coach, the defender inside of him or the defender outside of him

One of the best signings of the SL era you said, then a few months later you decided you wanted to mona about something then said he was something like the 10th best centre in SL, turns out you were right though after your flipflopping.