The Gelling debate is an interesting one.

I'm of the opinion that he's only having to do so much work because your forwards aren't.

If your forwards were, he wouldn't be a talented enough centre to make your team.

I mean really, he can't be a long term answer for Wigan in the centres can he? He often looks like he has about as much control over his limbs as my 6 month old.

He makes bad errors but then again we have seen him do some brilliant stuff with the ball that makes him look like a world beater as well. IMO he has both the talent and the work ethic, he just needs to cut down on the unforced errors and I honestly think he would be the best centre in the league. Unfortunately that's surely been the aim for a while now and he's stilll doing it. Even with the errors he's still well worth his spot

For the last three months of last year Gelling looked like a world beater. In that period (not overall) he was the best centre in superleague by a mile IMO. He's big, powerful, pacey and had both good hands and a deft kicking game as well as big solid in defence. Fast forward to this year and his errors are killing him! He's still got all the physical attributes but he's struggling with his skill. Hopefully it's the colder weather and heavy pitch or it may just be a concentration thing as his place seems pretty safe.

I think we'll always have this wild inconsistency with him though. What you've got to hope is his big games and good spells come at the right times.

Josh did do better with Goulding on his inside. Goulding has neither the pace, power or size that Gelling has so had to rely on skill, ie draw the centre and /or wing and get the pass away to Josh.

Gelling's first instinct is to go for it himself and only pass if he gets stopped, when all the momentum has gone from the move

It doesn't seem five minutes since everyone was saying the same thing about Sarge; he never passes, or only as a last resort...

The short answer to that is we don't know. I feel confident in saying that, this time last year, you'd probably have been asking the same question about Sarginson though.

The truth is that Gelling has all the attributes plus a desire to win that is second to none. His work ethic is also exemplary as can be seen in the massive metres he makes week in, week out. Let's face it; it's only a week or so ago against Brisbane that he was arguably the best player on the park, up until getting injured.

There is only one real question mark hanging over him and that is consistency but, at the moment, the same thing can be levelled at the majority of our team. Will they come good? I think past seasons suggest they will. Will Gelling come good? Again, last season suggests he will. Does that mean he's the long term answer? Well, I reckon that's a moot point anyway as I don't truly believe that SL has ANY guaranteed long term answers anymore.

Sorry but can't agree here. There is one glaring question about him other than his lack of consistency - Can he pass to the winger????

People are overlooking this rather important factor because he makes so many yards. Let him make the yards in the second row or even at prop.

I'm beginning to think that he just isn't a centre.

Quick passing movements stop dead when it gets to him. He is starving Josh to death, and since Josh is one of our most potent weapons no wonder we are struggling. (I'm not just blaming Gell by the way, because Bowen must share the blame too)

I don't think that's fair on Gelling.

Goulding played with Sam Tomkins.

Sam used to draw all of the attention on his overlap runs, leaving Goulding with an easy pass out to a free Charnley on the overlap.

We still run the same system, but Bowen provides nothing like the same threat - he often passes way before he has committed his man, which renders the move pointless. Often when Gelling gets it he HAS to run with it because both he and Charnley are man marked.

What he did last year that he's failed to do this is draw in two tacklers on those runs and offload it to Charnley - but again that's something Goulding very rarely did, so it's a bit of an unfair comparison in my opinion.

You're entitled to your opinion but to say what Goulding did was easy and laid on a plate for him is a bit rich.
Sam ain't playing for HKR yet Goulding is still laying on try's for his winger.

Classic draw and pass centre play is a pleasure to watch, but seems to be dying out in our game, sadly.

I fully agree about Bowen not providing the spark in attack that Sam T did. And yet, he used to run some great lines in tandem with JT at the Cowboys. For a man of his experience, the lack of creativity in attack is a big disappointment.

Especially as (like Sam T, if you will) he's never been the best defensive fullback in the game, and always had the odd error in him. With Sam, we could say that the tries he makes and/or scores in attack more than made up for it. With Bowen thus far, not so at all.

Nope. I'm definitely still here.

And you are still too small.

Surely Ryan Hampshire has got to be worth playing in the halves now.

Well you're entitled to your opinion, of course, but according to the stats (rlhttps://www.superleague.co.uk/stats/player_statsrl) he had the 7th highest try assists of any centre in superleague last year with 11, and that was in his first full season as a centre! Anecdotally I've seen him get away some miracle balls too so the raw ability certainly isn't missing.

If you check those same stats you'll also see that in only a couple of games did he fail to make over a hundred metres and was often up around 200, including a massive 269 against Leeds. He was also in double figures in scoring tries himself (Same as Joel Moon).

Given it was his first full season in the team and has spent the majority of his time here unable to get a game unless he was turning out for the 1st team, I'm not exactly sure what you expected from him. I would suggest he made a pretty good fist of it and, certainly towards the back end of the season, was arguably the form centre in SL.

I'm not arguing he's the finished article...or anything close for that matter...but to say he 'just isn't a centre' based on his one (successful) year in that position is, frankly, stretching a point! If you're referring to THIS season, then hardly any of our players would be good enough so, again, it's an unfair assessment.

I don't know, any more than you do, whether he will push on from last season. However, if he does, he'll once again be at the top end of SL centres. Is that good enough for Wigan? Well, that's an entirely different argument!