Quote: St. Chunter "i disagree. over the course of the season atkins has played pretty well, it just seems to me that his mistakes are both highlighted and live in the memory of fans for longer than other players. people moan about his involvement but it's not as easy for a centre to make an impact as it is for a forward. gleeson doesn't get involved as much as atkins for my money but i have not seen one criticism of him for this on here (of which i'm glad).
people seem to assume that he is not making any attempt to improve the areas of his game where there are deficiencies, why not give hm the benefit of the doubt?'"
I think Gleeson's main weeknes is in defense - he seems to be unable to judge when to come infield to defend and tends to leave us exposed out wide. That said, I reckon his work rate in defense makes it harsh to critisize this weekness). This seems to be improving, but to be fair to him it was mainly when he was playing on the wing. I think if we have the choice of Gleeson, Atkins and Evans for next year I personally would choose Gleeson and Evans at the moment (althoug to be fair this is based on limited viewings of Evans) I don't think that making Ryan work for his place is a bad thing either.
Evans is a natural centre with the skill set required, whereas (as Jonh commented on) Ryan is an athlete who seems to have chosen RL as his game without having any real descernable skills - he relies heavily on his physical presence - not that this doesn't mean he could be international class in time of course. Hopefully the competition for places will bring out the best in Ryan and help him mature.
