Two passes and a couple of dummies could almost make him unreadable for the rest of the season.

Read Ryans interview in the Aug Rugby League World mag and he says he will end up in the back row himself.

The interview is light hearted but is a decent insight into Atkins's character and he comes accross very well.

I think we need to appreciate his good points and trust that he is working to improve himself wherever needed. we would be a poorer team without him IMO.

Played pretty well last night in my opinion, didn't really have the oppertunity to do much more than he did. Very few mistakes and his enthusiam seemed good, if he played like this for the remainder of the season then I dont think you could argue - but his place would be under threat next year on this form if Evans comes and Gleeson is fit.

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?

tbf to Ryan he played a lot better this week imo and was probably starved of ball but made good yards when in possession and seemed more generous with distribution to his wing man

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.

I rate Atkins higher than Gleeson. Gleeson can have a good game, and then the next you hardly see him.