Surely it is a good thing to have the two or even the three centre's playing for the two postion's.

We have competition it in the other positions.

I am sorry but that is nonsense. I have seen some Wigan lads get absolutely slated on these message boards, more so than players from outside the town. Ironically some of the worst for this were some of the posters that now want special treatment for Gelling. The biggest scapegoat I have ever seen on these boards was Darrell Goulding and he was hounded by some on here when he was still a teenager and went through a few seasons of being blamed for just about everything by some.

Too true, and like I have said before, one of the worse examples was the treatment of Keiron O'Loughlin, father of Sean in the eighties.

Wigan lads do get given more support when they are starting out though. Gelling is 22, I don't believe for a second that a 22 year old straight out of the academy would be getting the same amount of stick after 23 games (16 of which he was out of position)

As I said no they do not. Goulding got far more stick as a teenager and 20 year old than Gelling has ever got. Wigan lads often have to put up with all kinds of rubbish and get stick from people not just for Rugby reasons but because they werent liked by people from school, junior rugby, jealousy etc. I think that imports often get a lot more slack and the old they are being made a scapegoat because they are an import line is just an excuse trotted out in an attempt to defend them and give them more time.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that, Daz never got this kind of abuse from the stands as far as I recall. Breaking news by the way, Gelling's contract has been extended another year, source - Bilko

Never heard Thornley get anywhere near the amount of stick that Gelling has recieved in his time here. He doesn't make the same amount of handling errors though.

He gets stick though, Ive just looked at the stats comparing the 2 and Gelling isnt even worth considering over him. Plus Thornley seems to get Richards away more from what ive seen.

Gelling & Thornley are completely different players. Thornley is an out and out three quarter. He's a natural centre and I like him. Yes he has defensive lapses and if he works on that he can develop into a cracker. Gelling seems to get praise on here for the metres he makes in a game. That's why I think he'd be better suited to 2nd row. His handling at times is very poor but he's a real handful when he takes the ball in. I prefer Thornley out of the 2.

Thornley would be my pick for tonight and the cup final tbh. I thought he was having a terrific season up until a few iffy displays in defence around a month back. These things happen and a time out of the first team has hopefully given him a wake up call. I say all that I expect it to be Gellings place to lose tonight and we'll see how he goes. I like him also but he needs to work on his ball retention. There's no doubt he's a handful for defences but he lacks concentration sometimes.

Both have potential but need to kick on.

I think Gelling has shown signs he could be a really good player for us. He seems to have better footwork than Thornley and more of an eye for a half break. I think a lack of concentration and silly knock ons are his main problem. Don't forget he is playing on with quite a serious shoulder injury though which requires surgery. He played through this in order to win himself a new contract.

Thornley was played too long, he was our last ever present after 17 games.
His back three games were a bit off and he looked jaded.
He had an impossible job replacing George Carmont and for a lad who'd only played three SL games prior to this season I think he's done exceptionally well.
A better prospect than Gelling. AG though looks more althletic and faster although he has a greater capacity for errors. We can't keep dropping the ball against better sides like him and Hughes did v HKR.
Thornley would be my preference for left centre and I think He'll get the 4 shirt next season.

edit, I d up the calculations first time round and missed out a couple of stats. Here's the stats below, keep in mind 2 of Gellings games were out of position and he got injured early doors in one of those. Also there's no 'caught out of position' stat, which is my main issue with Thornley

Tries per game - Gelling 0.78 Thornley 0.6
Carries per game - Gelling 12 Thornley 9
Average gain per carry - Both 8 metres
Metres per game - Gelling 91 Thornley 79
Offloads per game - Gelling 1.3 Thornley 0.6
Tackle busts per game - Gelling 2.6 Thornley 1.7
Tackles per game - Gelling 8.3 Thornley 9.1
Missed tackles per game - Gelling 0.89 Thornley 0.6
Errors per game - Gelling 1.9 Thornley 0.5
Penalties per game - Gelling 0.6 Thornley 0.2
Clean Breaks - Gelling 0.4 Thornley 1
Assists - Gelling 0.1 Thornley 0.5

Just for balance Thornley has more than twice as many clean breaks per game and four times as many try assists per game. That's 9 try assists to 1 which certainly supports the other poster's view about putting Richards away.