I thought he did OK today, but there were a couple of times he got away but got caught when Briscoe would have scored.

I thought Turner played well in attack today, there were a couple of catch and passes he made that were out of the top drawer.

Is any youngster ever realy ready.

and i didnt know he was injured dont realy keep up to date with the acadamy apart from checking the results, as you can tell by me spelling his name wrong

For Crooks to be a genuine contender for a regular first team spot, he needs to find some pace. This is no a dig at the lad, as overall he has done well, but for a back, at the moment he isnt fast enough to cause the opposition any real worries.

I agree, the wakey game at the weekend was the first time I've seen him 'live' so to speak and it confirmed what I thought from seeing him on TV regarding his lack of pace.

On a positive note though he clearly has a little bit of size to put on and if he can concentrate on explosive type training to build the muscle and more importantly the fast twitch fibres in them he could gain a lot of pace as well as an ability to bust a lot more tackles and put some big hits in.

I think we have a very promising prospect on our hands

Margo Wells the wife of Olympic gold medal winner Alan Wells did sprint/intensive athletic training with Danny Cipriani to great effect, reckon it wouldn't be a bad idea to get something along those lines pre season.
It's about time the club got some professionals from outside RL & not just in terms of fitness/speed but also it seems in terms of mental preparation. Does the club even have a sports pyschologist working with the squad. I'd doubt it given the implosions of the last 3 weeks...

His pace is fine for a centre (which is his best position).

I dont agree, I competed in 200m and 400m to international standard up to U18 level and with some proper coaching and traning he would make massive improvements, even if his overall speed didnt improve but his acceleration to getting to his top speed was improved this would make him much faster over the first 10-15 yards which would make a lot of difference to how many clean breaks he makes - Darren Campbell for example offers this to lots of sports clubs.

I also dont agree that his pace is fine for a centre, I think the likes of Atkins and Watkins in this country show that there is no substitute for pace and make the difference between a club standard player and international standard.

But hey ho as I said before he is an exciting prospect and I'm looking forward to watching him develop

The old method are the best .Make him run with weights on his back or an old car tyre tied to the back on a harness .My lad laugh when I told him I trained like this in the Army .I use to run miles with a large pack filled with rocks .People took the pi-s but they didn't catch me when it mattered

yes, and he'll end up with arthritic knees and a bent spine in later life.

Disagree Dave. He has average pace. Some on this forum have mocked Shenton whilst at StS but he when through our defence like a knife in butter went 30 yards without a hand on him then set the try scorer on his way.

Ask yourself this, when was that last time a Hull FC centre did anything like that?

Crooks will end up another frustrated second rower in the Yeaman mould.

Saints away.. Turner.

Didn't Crooks do that against Leeds to put Briscoe in ? Also as stated Turner ran around the outside of Shenton 10m from his own line and Shenton spent the next 90m trying and failing to catch him.

Let's have a bit of perspective. Ben Crooks is 18 and has only played 5 proper matches for us(I'm discounting frendlies). He's shown a lot of promise in these games and hasn't looked too bad. Many of his problems (such as a high amount of missed tackles) will most likely be rectified with experience and him maturing.

He may not be the quickest player we have but he isn't slow either. And pace isn't everything - if it was we would be seeing Dwayne Chambers in SL but in he couldn't make it at u20s level.

Despite this, we now have some people on here slagging the kid off and making out as if he'll be a failure. Give the kid a chance. Some people on this board go way ott.

Turner - length of field try vs Saints
Turner - length of field try vs KR
Crooks - vs Leeds (Briscoe scored)

There'll have been more because I haven't been to every game this season.