Why would we risk him when we had it in the bag anyway?

Made the most metres of anyone on the pitch.

Always does but as a centre he was awful last night. He has got the basic skills to play the position although he's slightly more natural then Sarginson who was truly terrible.

As players I like the pair of them but no way are they centres. I was all for giving Gelling a run there and had wanted to see it since he first came but he's proved that whilst he's a real handful of a player he isn't cut out for the subtleties of the position. As for Sarginson he just can't make a right decision at centre. His natural instinct is to step right straight away which takes him away from his winger on that left side. He'd be better over in the right centre berth IMO.

Both are decent fill in options but I'd rather see Sarginson at fullback or wing and Gelling in the pack.

Doesnt mean he played well or that he is a good centre. People get fat too carried away by stats, which are often meaningless anyway without any context, without looking at the actual game. Play any 2nd row at centre and tell them to blindly take the ball up from every tap penalty and they would return much the same.

I would love to see how many of Gelling's metres are actually easy metres such as a nice easy 10 metres from a tap penalty, which no other centres do at Wigan and it is not something that is in the gameplan either. It is like the stupid way he runs down blind alleys from dummy half on the 4th tackle and wasting the set when a move is one the other way. Its all very well raving about the metres but at times it is detriment to what is going on on the field. Once again he was also missing tackles, throwing forward passes etc but he makes a lot of metres so thats okay.

have said for a long time he's not cut out for a SL starting spot.
positives - great effort. great physique. fantastic in the air.
negatives - no rugby brain, no obvious position to play him.

hes a decent squad player who is a good filler in, but isnt good enough to hold down a starting spot if others are available.

the fact that he looks OK is SL is more a testament to the lack of quality in the centres in general than anything else.

All 4 of our centres frustrate me one way or another. Gelling has got all the physical attributes and is a decent defender (though he does get beat one-on-one quite often) but he lacks the necessary skills to be a top centre. Sarginson is quick and elusive but isolates his winger too much in attack and is ropey in defence. Goulding is probably our most natural centre, despite lacking the physical attributes of our other options, but his form has gone backwards since 2012 and he seems to be missing Tomkins creating the space for him to put Charnley away. Thornley was looking very good up until his injury but he has a tendency to be inconsistent.

What we'd do for another George Carmont to come along eh!

Carmont on one side, the other 4 melded together Frankenstein's monster style on the other.

Correct, if we dont sign a centre for next season we are in trouble.

No offence to Shaun Wane....but why release Goulding, but persevere with the eternal 'potential' of Anthony Gelling !

Probably because Gelling has broken a tackle in his career..

What about the eternal potnential of Darrell Goulding? I'm still waiting for him to put three seasons together without playing so poorly he gets dropped for the rest of the year (it's never yet happened, though he did once manage two)

Goulding did fulfill his potential IMO and proved his worth but that's probably the issue. Even at his very best he's still only decent rather then outstanding. It's a worry that I'd still class him as our best centre tbh because he probably shouldn't be. There are too many rough edges in the other 3 supposed centres games at the moment but on the up side they have plenty of improvement in them.

One lad who could really benefit from all this is Oliver Gildart. He's very young but there's an opening there and he's a classy player. I'd be looking to try and get him a game this year.

Gouldings leaving so sooner or later you won't be able to defend Gelling or any of the other centres by having a yet another unwarranted pop at Goulding.

The way Goulding plays as centre to Charnley works. It works very well too.
On his own merits DG doesn't appear that great but he is responsible for a large number of tries Charnley has scored these past seasons.
The situation does remind me of a Saints player, Ken Large, who was centre to Van Vollenhoven. TVV was one of the all time greats but Large was rated as ok but not superb. The thing was that they both played very well alongside each other and Large made many a try scoring opening for TVV.
It was a great partnership with one being the senior partner the other the junior.
I see it very much in the same way with Goulding and Charnley.
We could pay a heavy price for breaking up that partnership.

having Sam chiming into the line and HH dummy runs also helped Goulding ship the ball on to Charney and gave us great attacking down that side