Even the minority who like to moan must surely see the potential in Tom. He has skinned some top players recently.
If we don't appreciate him, you know someone else will be soon enough!

Think its difficult for someone like Crowther to play SL week in week out at this stage of his career, though the experience he has been given this season must have done him some good.

As for Johnstone, stick him outside a fully fit Ali and someone like Lee Smith and bobs your uncle.

He's not injured,he's been playing for the 19s,I think Brian Smith is going for experience and to judge them first.I hope he gets another shot when the time is right.

Must admit, get Johnstone outside a regular centre who he can trust in and his game will flourish, instead of the senior players inside him leaving him exposed and having to over compensate.

I don't think anyone is questioning him with ball in hand, he's an exciting prospect and has bags of pace and natural athletic ability, I think people are just commenting that he has been found wanting defensively on occasion, but at his age and level of experience it's not surprising. I have said on here before that defending as a threequarter isn't an easy task, you are faced with split second decision making and for me the advantage will always be with the attacker, especially when it comes to kicks. As for Johnstone, you would hope with more games and coaching, he will improve that area of his game, but then again he may not, some centres/wingers don't improve in that area. We can all name players who were a massive threat with ball in hand, Adam Hughes, Peter Fox to name a couple. It almost became a thing with Fox, to put it simply where people would say, if he lets two in lets hope he scores three! You have to accept that most tries are scored out wide, I don't have the stats, but probably most seasons the leading try scorer will be a winger, apart from a half back now and again. I'm sure maybe Leeds fans were questioning Ryan Hall rather than praising Johnstone, it's natural to look at your own player rather than giving the opposition player the credit. Look at the tries Josh Charnley has scored for Wigan, phenomenal really, how many of those could have been genuinely stopped in all reality? I think you just have to accept that a certain amount of tries will always be scored by /wingers, the latter were born to score them, you just have to hope that on the day, your guy scores more than the opposing player......

He is twice the player of useless Richard Owen already. The kid has a bright future and obviously cares unlike the useless Cas lads we have in the team.

The defence is all over the place in every part of the team so how Johnstone 's defence can be judged at this stage is beyond me. If he were in a team who's defensive structure didn't expose him time after time he wouldn't be faced with no win situations over and over again.

His centres continually leave him with a 2 or 3 on 1 so he either stays out on his wing and allows the opposition a walk in try closer to the sticks or he jams in to tackle his centres player and risks being bypassed giving his opposite winger a walk in try. No win situation for him!

On crossfield kicks he's often left 1v1 with the opposing winger always having the advantage because they're moving onto the ball at pace. This happens because his centre rushes out way too early to cut the play off meaning the opposition half back can decide to kick early.

Until we sort out the defence of the centres or bring in new centres we are going to suffer from poor defence both in the middle and on the edges.

Structuraly defence begins at marker and if that's not done correctly then everything else is under pressure.
If the marker gets held up by the acting half the As have to turn to defend their inside shoulder instead of out and from that point everyone outside the As is moving in leaving huge gaps on the outside where Johnstone is supposed to fix it.

I agree Centres are the priority and also a power man through the middle with speed. Lynn and Arundel are no way near standard from what I have seen this season

Realistically, could this post apply to Riley then?

I do enjoy the in depth tactics type posts, to me a layman of the game I never really think too deeply regards the finer points of the game.

Strange how some wingers are slated for defensive frailties whilst others in similar defensive situations are excused and others blamed!
But yes he is a fine prospect.
Let's not dwell too much on his defence and enjoy the sight of him flying for the line.
I am sure with dedication the rest will come.

The fact that he has his own thread shows how much attention he has grabbed in a couple of games.
He is an absolutely outstanding prospect. He is already faster than most and elusive. He took Hall on and imho won on the day.

He has good defence too and is not weak, but he has made a couple of errors recently. We don't have to canonise him for his good work ignoring his defects and equally we should not over criticise someone who is developing.

He is what he is and we should appreciate it and keep hold as long as we can

Here here! Lets be grateful that he is on our side and is now under a coach with the quality of Brian Smith.