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.

Some pretty selective choosing of stats to try and prove your point there...

I'd also argue that averaging nearly 3 errors per game for a SL player is pretty unforgiveable.

Edit: I goosed up calculations first time round. Added in the stats I (didn't deliberately) leave out. To be fair though it's based on 9 games for Gelling, 2 of which were out of position on the wing where he's hardly likely to rack up assists or tackles

It's the errors for Gelling that are the big worry. An average of three per game is shoddy and its holding him back.

He's a raw talent and he'll continue to learn. For me, he has got more potential and room for improvement than Thornley. Still question marks over whether he'll reach that potential though, I hope he does.

Its pretty pathetic when people leave out stats, which are pretty crucial in showing how a centre plays, to deliberately try and paint a one sided picture. You know someone is struggling to advance the claims of a player if they can only do it by continually slating another.