He will learn to organise and improve his kicking

I'd agree with this - simply being quick is not good enough.

However, as I'm sure we can all see, there is far more to Brierley's game than just his pace.

He possesses a good awareness in both attack and defence, and can combine the two - how many others score interception tries for us? - and it is his combination of pace and ability to read the game which has made him such a successful support player. He can throw long passes to the left and the right, as we saw most recently against Hull KR (where he was involved in all four of our tries). He has a good rugby brain - and I'm not sure one can say that with as much confidence about Kevin Penny, Dale Cardoza, Paul White or the aforementioned mystery blond. You could even add the fastest of them all, Dwain Chambers.

He is not by any means the finished article, he can be quiet in matches, and was particularly quiet in the second half last week. But his pace, his support play, his ability to read the game, his ability to beat a man and the quality of his passing suggest that he has a real chance of making it in Super League. Whether he lights it up or not in 2017 I don't know, but I'm sure he'll offer more than pace next season - because he's already done that in this, his debut Super League (not full!) year.

Sounds like the perfect fullback

Sounds like any other player put into fullback then

Brierly would be an excellent fullback but is a better half back

There are many players like that

I'm not saying he's on his own in that regard. He is one of few who's coach has come out and said he doesn't know where to play him though.

I think he's a better half than FB too

You couldn't make some of this stuff up, He has shown in the very few games he has been able to play in that he has got what we need, " have needed for a long time " Playing in a side that think backing up is something relating to blocked pipes, and offloading is an alien concept, he has still done well, he has fallen short nowhere that i can see, and yet here we are talking about his downsides, that seemingly even include him not being heavy enough among other things.

Talk about Grix getting some stick after five years, this lad is getting it before he's got started in super league, and let's face it, If he had not played last week, we would not be in S league either.

His all round game will improve as he gets more experience in SL and he'll get stronger, It's up to Stone to make sure his talent isn't squandered, Nobody is saying he is Brilliant, but he is so obviously better than anyone else we have had for years, and It's not as though he is going to let down a team of super stars is it. all of who have their downsides as well.
We have seen over the past few years where pedestrian football has left us, we have staggered on year after year, with makeshift halves who have been lots of effort and little talent, God alone knows where we would have been had we not had Brough.

He has shown enough to make me think he can be a very good player anyway.

Good post Jumbuck and it looks like Stone is going to do something about it.

If we had Brierley when Crabtree was offloading 2 or 3 years back, we would have been top of the tree now, he is what we have been missing for years.

Is the mystery blonde Andy Cheetham?

No- Andrew frew-although cheets would fit too!

Except Andrew Frew wasn't blonde...

Must have been a different sh** Aussie then- there's been so many.....

worst blonde i remember apart from cheetham was ben kusto!

This thing about Ryan's defence is an interesting one. He's obviously going to be singled out because he looks 'frail'. Yet I've seen him stop Menzie Yere in his tracks, in a one-on-one, and there are a lot of bigger guys who have come worst off in trying to do that! I'm not sure how you are going to 'bulk him up' (not legally, anyway) as he's had 3-4 pre-seasons at Leigh, where weights and nutrition programmes were always high on the agenda, and tailored to individual players.

With some dedicated coaching, I'm sure he will increase his range of talents. He was always willing to learn at Leigh, and did develop a lot, as a player and person. Hence I think the alleged Stone comment about not having received any proper coaching, was somewhat below the belt - especially given the performance of his team in the first 40-50 minutes at Leigh!