Ashton, Mamo, Charnley, and Austin are all really quick players, Mamo and Ashton are about the same speed. That's frightening pace in the squad more than i remember seeing at the same time for us. They're great players aswell, with those in the team we're very Dangerous aswell. Gelling is a fast powerful Guy aswell so we have speed across the park.
I genuinely think Lineham will have to fight to get back in the team and may struggle to do so for quite awhile.

No better player in the league when he’s on it.

Totally agree...Tommy doesn't get in this side at the moment.

Isn’t the major difference that Penny had no real grounding in rugby league so was a real novice.

Yeah I would keep Mamo, King, Gelling and Charnley... it’s rather harsh on Lineham as he’s our top try scorer.. But Mamo has really shocked me how improved he’s become over the last few months.

I agree. Lineham has really let us down by getting suspended over something so stupid and has to fight for his place back.

I like Mamo, he’s smart and a character. Ashton is smart too, and that can only be good for the team.

I think that is a good point, Ashton has played a fair bit of rugby at local level, has had a year in Oz and of course a full season at Championship level. But I think the point Sally is making is 'we have been here before'. On top of that is the problem that when your side wins 9 games in a row your players become immortals, whereas back in March most of the side needed to be binned, ie supporters swing erratically between hype and doom.

We certainly don't know yet exactly how good Ashton is likely to be. Agreed he will have bad patches. Agreed he will become sussed out as coaches and players spot his attacking preferences and defensive weaknesses. But then quality ageing rockstars like Ratchford still manage to thrive, and perhaps more importantly it's because they continue to develop and change just as Westwood moved into the pack and Mike Cooper grew into a high quality prop.

I still think Ashton is a different animal to Penny. I guess everyone will remember the try Penny scored against Saints when we moved the ball from behind our own sticks and he scorched away down the touch line to score (is it on Youtube somewhere ? ). The memory plays tricks of course, but I think Ashton is probably even quicker (pre-injury and weight gain certainly). But Ashton is a lot bigger than Penny - a good 4 inches, and that makes a big difference when you are are collecting the high ball, plus his extra weight makes a difference in the tackle as well. Add that into the level of aggression and determination he shows and I would say he looks a significant upgrade on Penny.

Just as a last point I suspect many of us are comparing Ashton with Penny 2017 when he had finished developing rather than when he broke into the team in 2006 ( and was hailed as a future International). To me at least, Ashton already looks a better player despite his naive attempts to pass the ball when he is lying on the ground or his dodgy positioning at FB.

For me it really is the smarts that sets him apart. Yes he’s fast, but he’s got to have the brains to know where to pop into the line to be able to make use of that speed.

It looks like he is learning a lot from Austin and Ratchford.
I remember in the early days of Ratchford playing full back on a more permenant basis, he took quite a bit of stick for dropping bombs and losing possession of the ball by carrying it in one hand. It probably took time for Ratchford to read our defence and see where we're short on numbers and gain the confidence to communicate that to the defence. I recall watching Matty Russell at fullback and he would appear to just point to his left ot right randomly but I would rarely see him barking orders at the line.

If there was just one thing that I would like him to do that shouldn't take years of learning and that is to recognise when Daryl Clark is going to jump out of dummy half and go with him. We still see Clark go and break the line with a 1 on 1 with the fullback and nobody within 10 yards of him. If Ashton can master that he is almost guaranteed 1 try a game just from that.
He does have a bright future ahead of him and he is similar to a number of young full backs shining in the NRL that have blistering pace

Yeah this is exactly right.

I'm mostly concerned about the negative impact overhyping a young player has on the player, because it makes him a target for the backlash. The problem with overhype is it irritates people and creates a reflex instinct to want to cut them down. Remember when Ed Sheeran came out. I thought yeah he's ok, he's trying to be a bit different, I quite liked his stuff. Then he was on every radio station non stop and everytime you sat down in a pub one of his songs came over the radio and you just think turn this annoying poop off, I hated him with a passion. It wasn't his fault, I was just reacting to the overhype.

We don't want to make Matty Ashton the Ed Sheeran of Wire by crowning him as a superstar while he's still a first year SL player who's in the stage of his career where he's entitled to make mistakes without being judged by the standards of a superstar.



I agree he looks like he's got better credentials than Penny did at an equivalent stage of his career although Penny did get in the SL dream team and had at least half a season of SL performances when he was a star winger, which Ashton hasn't done yet. I think Penny was quicker than Ashton when he first broke through, and he was really well balanced on his feet so he could swerve at speed, which is why everyone got so excited as that was so rare. One of the sad things with the Penny story was he had some injuries early on and the edge seemed to come off his pace around his third season and he was quick but not fastest-in-the-league pace after that. But Ashton seems stronger and more confident in his decision-making than a young Penny.

The other good sign with Ashton, is you can see he's good without fans having to make excuses for him. With Penny, you would hear stuff like "yes his defence isn't great but Offiah couldn't tackle either", or "he's getting blamed for Matt King's mistakes" or "Cullen/TS is destroying his confidence". Once you're at the point of trying to make excuses to claim that a player really is a top class prospect, he probably isn't as top class as you think. Ashton just seems to be good, without excuses.

I was distinguishing the 2 on the basis that as I understand it Penny had played virtually no league experience when signed up. This meant he was making all his learning mistakes in the spotlight, hopefully Ashton has made a lot of his mistakes at a lower level.

Perhaps unfortunate timing given his display at the weekend. I don't think he played well against Saints, made a few errors against Salford too.

Are you happy with him being moved to fullback? When I saw him play for Swinton he was mostly at centre. He was outstanding there at that level. Give him early ball and he'd give you much more threat than you have currently. He might make a world class fullback eventually, but I'm not convinced it's the best option. His pace is outstanding, but the other aspects of playing fullback aren't really there yet for me. He seems to make your attack a bit clunky and perhaps you'd be better with Ratchford at 1, Widdop and Austin in the halves. He can still backup any breaks and give you an option to move it wide early.

For me sorting that 1,6, 7 out properly is the key to you winning SL this season. I'd personally move Ashton to centre or even the wing to give him exposure but not perhaps put so much pressure on him in a key position.