Quote: stillinthepast "There have always been players around like Thornley who show a lot of promise, but because of inerrant basic faults in there game will always be viewed with suspicion.
This has nothing to do with his age, being able to catch a ball and secure it should be second nature from an early age. When the ball moves across to his wing, fans at present are hoping the first thing he does is hold on to the ball before expecting him to do something with it.
David Hodgson was always like that when he first came to Wigan, he would do something brilliant one min then commit a right howler the next min. Jamie Anscough was another.
I know Gelling is prone to errors himself, but at least he seems to have a bit of devil about him which Thornley seems to be lacking.'"
Honestly you could swap the names Thornley and Gelling around and the above post would not be far from the truth, to a degree.
Where I don't think you could is in the basic skills comment. If I had to pick which of the two lacked basic skills its Gelling IMO.
He makes up for it in effort by the bucket load. If Pryce had as much heart as Gelling he'd have been world class.
I can see positives in both players. Of the two I think Thornley is the cleverer player and has far more of a chance of being a very good centre. I am not sure what the future holds for Gelling. Our stupid rules mean he has nowhere to play except the first team and I don't think you can keep rotating the centres to give each some game time.
I like him as player but I reckon a reason why I do is his all out effort. I am not sure that will be good enough for a long term future here as a centre.
