He did bog all for half an hour until Gidley took charge from Full Back.

I think recovery from injuries of Clark and Westerman and just how bad Patton's leg is will make selection a last minute affair. How Gidley can play with a perforated ear drum I don't know. Training will also be affected by Ratchford/Hill/Brown recovery from journey. With the excellent performance of Smith and the rise of Julien and return of Crosby and others we suddenly seem to have a lot more options.

I wouldn't take much notice of WireWireWire, Marsh. He/she just suggested Ratchford playing at 9. That sums up all the RL knowledge I need to know about them.

To suggest Patton does naff all shows how much you watch the game. The team got off to one of the worst starts I've ever seen and played the first 20 minutes under the kosh trying to get a foothold on the game and swing the momentum. once they did that they started applying pressure and the rest is history. a half is a link between the forwards and the backs. Until the forwards start performing and laying a platform the halves have got nothing to work with.

Here we have a young homegrown lad with bags of potential and we have people calling for his head. How did Williams end up as he is? Wayne stuck him in and gave him the 6 shirt and didn't drop him. he allowed him to make mistakes and allowed him to grow into the role.

But instead WireWireWire you want a 20 year old Centre/Backrower after one good game in the halves to be shoehorned in, to partner a panic bought, aging standoff. Who is and generally has been, as you put it, cack for most of his career.

Ratchford as an interchange Hooker... That's a belter that is

Matty Smith is 30 years old, Patton is still learning. His stats for Friday were pretty good, including the pass to Julien that started our revival. He does need to keep improving but he won't do that without a decent run in the team. I don't think any of our starting half-backs this season has been any better.

This season has ended up being a bit like the other year, where we had myler, gob, ratch and bridge all having a go, at various points. No continuity, and none of them really succeeded.

Myler was a poor mans McGuire, Ratch floating back and too between fullback and the halves due to us having no real option at 1 and O'Brien seems to have been a fullback all his career without ever realising it. Bridge stepped in due to positional shuffling in between injuries ect.

Patton is an out and out half. just like any young player, they weren't the best when they first started but were allowed time to find their feet. Patton though is setting up tries and closing games out which id say is pretty decent for a young lad still growing into the role. It's more than Myler ever did.

Although I agree about your comments on Ratchford and Bridge your a bit harsh as far as Myler is concerned IMO.

When you say that O'Brien didn't realise he was a FB did anyone else, teammates, supporters and perhaps more importantly the coaching staff at Warrington? I don't recall him having a run out at 1 until he went to Salford a case of 20-20 hindsight?

Oh I'd also stick with Patton to let him grow into the role and hopefully realise his full potential

Whoever is the other half, I would agree that Patton needs to play all the time now. Gidley will probably be gone at the end of this year and Brown the year after, so we need to know if Patton can hack it.

But Patton is a mystery. I watched him in the U19's where his long kicking game was already well developed, but he was inconsistent. One game he would kick the opposition to death, the next 2-3 he would hardly feature. Now his skill set has improved a lot, his short game is good, he takes the line on much more and can drop bombs into the opposition corners. But he still seems to disappear from one game to the next - and I don't really understand why. Perhaps it is all about game time and experience. Perhaps we all remember the Lee Briers at the end of his career and forget how long it took for him to fine tune his game. So the only way we will find out if he can make it though is by playing him.

Can't argue with that UR. I suppose I didn't explain myself properly, the comments about O'Brien you make are what I intended to say. No one realised it and its a bit strange how our coaching staff never considered it seeing as Salford seemed to spot it straight away.

My comments on Myler may be a bit harsh yes as he did a great deal for us and saved us a good few times with important tries. What I mean is that he was and is a support player, latching onto someone else's break and had a great knack for popping up in the right place in the right time. when Briers left it was expected that after spending so much time with one of the leagues masters of unlocking a defence, Myler would be able to do the same. It was here that his organisation skills and kicking game was found out. In my opinion anyway.

and I agree with your assessment of why people, it would seem you included were probably disappointed with Myler. He is a support player in a Maguire style getting on the end of things rather than a Briers pulling the strings, but, there aren't many of these types around and can it be coached, it appears it can't, I would suggest you either have it or you don't. He also brought an excellent defence for a small guy which might not be a paramount attribute for a half, but, then again it's no good weaving a bit of magic at one end whilst being a turnstile at the other?

I might be wrong and maybe it was just me, but, when we brought Clark in the 'dream' was a bash from Hill, a dart from Clark from a quick PTB, finished off by Myler....unstoppable and probably explains our style these days without the 'un' at the head of stoppable.

for the next game I would stick with the team that beat saints wherever possible and rest those coming back from injury and have those returning from down under get their body clocks back on track and a good weeks hard training to get back into the team

Spot on that about Myler, i always thought he was a great support player and was the perfect foil for Briers. When Briers finished some people said Myler was crap, thats not true he is best playing along side players like Briers.

Myler was on a large contract, with that, there was little chance he would remain a Wire.

Briers never really disappeared. In his earlier era he would make mistakes but I don't remember ever thinking "Briers has been invisible today".

An early Briers of 1997-02 era would be more like this:

- Kick a 40/20
- Miss a tackle that led to a try, Fletcher St end go "-kin ell Briers!"
- Shoot out of the line and pick an interception then go half the length before slipping it to Toa or Hunte to finish off.
- Shoot out of the line to try it again and end up out of position and the opposition score, Fletcher St end go "oh FFS Briers, could see that coming a mile off"
- Throw a dummy and shoot through the line and score a great individual try
- Have a temper tantrum at the referee after we get a dodgy decision go against us
- Kick straight out on the full, still rattled by the bad decision

Whilst that was frustrating you could always see there was something special with Briers that just needed to mature over time. I would prefer a young halfback did that rather than go invisible during a game because surely the number one thing you want in a halfback is for them to be able to get involved and set the initiative.

That brought back a few memories and made me smile. Briers and Patton seem two different characters though. I can imagine sitting on the beach with a 4 year old Briers and not being able to relax for 5 minutes because he would be collapsing the neighbours deckchair, dropping their dog in a 6 foot hole he had dug, or having a quick slurp of the old mans beer.

Just as Briers learned through practice to execute, perhaps Patton needs to learn to drop further back when making the last tackle kicks to a team that are charging him ? Perhaps he is struggling to accommodate all his duties; long and short kicks, field goals, drop goals, try assists etc. He is certainly doing a lot more work (jobs) than at U19. You can imagine Briers coping well with that because he wanted to be involved in everything, but perhaps it will take time with Patton.

That may all be wishful thinking, in truth I do feel a bit of deja vu creeping up and wondering if we are seeing another GOB.