I feel that defence has always been Goulding's biggest weakness.

He is one youngster who can NOT claim that he 'never had a chance at Wigan'. He was given a first team shirt last year, but often his performances were less than adequate.

I still think he's got loads of potential, and I desperately hope - for his sake as well as ours - that he soon fulfills it. But deep down I'm starting to fear we may have another Aspinwall on our hands.

I'm sorry to have to agree with you.

I have been saying this for a while, he simply lacks anything to put him into that good SL player bracket. He is not exceptionally strong, he is not big, he is not blessed with great pace, does not have wonderful skills etc etc.

Hindsite is a wonderful thing but i think we allowed the wrong player to leave when we let Gleeson join Wakefield, he has a skill set way above anything i have seen from Goulding and has the ability to open up space for his wingman.

Jonh,
The reasons Gleeson was let go were not entirely Rugby related.

Correct, it was because of his gingerness.

Then it was Right decision IMHO!

There is an interesting facebook group set up by Andy Ballard i think, Pauls brother, ginger jew as a bit of a homage to his gingerness.

Thats harsh. He has a turn of pace which we have lacked in the centre position for a while.

He can beat a player 1 on 1, and gets himself oppurtunities to score tries. Fair enough, he might bomb a few chances, but scoring them on a regular basis is a hard thing to come by if you're his age. Be fair.

The only thing I don't trust about Goulding is his defensive ability. He comes out of the line far too quickly leaving a huge gap.

I'm sorry to say it, but if either of those were true, the game would have been won last Friday.

I'd say he has a turn of pace. I'd back him over Bailey, Carmont, DV, Aspinwall & Macavoy in a foot race any day. Like the original poster said he’s offered more pace than we’ve had in previous years.

I also reckon he’d come close to Phelps as well.

He’s got a lot of potential imo and we could do far far worse. Maybe if we utilised him more or worked with him in training to work on the flaws that are there we could defiantly have a good prospect and a solid centre for the foreseeable future;

You can see the effort he’s put in pre season and I’m really hoping it pays off for him because as I said before we could do far, far worse

Watch all of the vidoes of the game, particularly the one from Hull FC that Alex has just posted.

rlhttp://www.hullfc.com/hullfctv/season09.phprl

That from Goulding is centre play at it's worst. Can you imagine what would have happened if Matt Gidley got that opportunity.

His winger would have had a walk in.

Are you really comparing Matt Gidley - a 31 year old international who has won every trophy imaginable, represented his country and origin countless times, plays for one of the best teams in super league and has bags of experience to a 20 year old Goulding at the beginning of his career who only has a few years of experience playing for Wigan behind him?

Sorry but thats unfair and harsh - yeah he broke through into the team a few years ago but he is only 20, he has his career ahead of him, he has plenty time to learn from his mistakes and develop himself into the player we know he can be. I for one think he can be great for Wigan, he has the right attitude and he does have skill and the neccesary speed - we cant have the fastest players in the world but he aint exactly as slow as Wellens is he, like someone else said he would beat the likes of Vaealiki, Bailey, Ainscough, Carmont etc in a race. Sometimes he makes the wrong decisions yes, but so does everyone, if Carmont had made those two bad decicions against Hull a word wouldnt be said.

If he wasnt good enough he wouldnt have been given the No 3 shirt last year and this year he would have been sold off like brown, wild, aspinwall, gleeson, robinson etc.

When we do let our young Wigan lads go people complain about bringing these average aussies in like Phelps and Bailey, yet when a lad like Goulding gets his chance we get people calling for his head saying he isnt good enough.

He is 12 months older than Sam T. In 12 months time, when Sam makes a couple of errors are you going to be saying the same things? Are you going to compare him to Long or some other seasoned player and say he wouldn't have made them.
For me we need to give the lad a chance, yes he is going to make errors and he will learn from them. If he does not then that's his fault and he will be cast aside. Id rather see him play centre than Phelps or Baily.

I can't help but think to Joel Tomkins when discussing a young player not fufilling potential. Only 12months back alot of people wouldn't have batted an eyelid if he'd been let go by the club and now he's considered one of our best players and a certain England player of the future. That shows what patience can do when it come to a youngster. It can be very costly writing them off too soon.

If we look at Gouldings preformences over his time in the first team he's probably done alot more then Tomkins did in his first couple of years yet to be fair has had alot more games then afforded to Tomkins.

I like Goulding tbh and think he has alot of improvment in him. He does need to improve but he has the basis of a good superleague player. I really think Wigan need to get working hard with him on the training pitch and get him watching the likes of Gidley in action to see a centre that makes great choices with ball in hand. He knows when to go himself and when to pass and that comes with experience. He's obviously got bags of natural talent to go with it but Goudlings no mug.