I'm looking forward to seeing Ritson and I think he will do well for us. He's got some quality players around him now who will look after him and it seems he's willing to take some advice from them as well.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how he goes. There can be no guarantees but I have a good feeling about him.
What was he like tonight? Anything promising?
Bit harsh on Ritson. He will have a lot more time and space to excel when we are at full strength. He'll score a fair amount of tries and do his fair share in defense. No one excelled last night but it's what you expect with so many changes and finishing with the academy team.
If I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor
RFL Championship / Super League (17) - 1931–32, 1952–53, 1958–59, 1965–66, 1969–70, 1970–71, 1974–75, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2014, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022
Challenge Cup (13) - 1955–56, 1960–61, 1965–66, 1971–72, 1975–76, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2021
World Club Challenge (3) - 2001, 2007, 2023
League Leader's Shield (9) - 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2022
Friendlies are by far the worst type of games to run the rule over new players,to much chopping and changing to make a sound judgement on anyone.
Grace was raw when he first came in, with some big deficiencies in his game. Always had that potential, though.
He got his chance, though, at a time when we were only just starting our journey back to the top after a dark period of turgid rugby. The vast majority of fans appreciated he had improvement to make, but just enjoyed the excitement he provided when given the ball in some space.
But there were still no shortage of numpties who were slagging him off, calling him crap or a liability and wanting him dropped.
Ritson is coming into a 4-time champion side and replacing a pretty much finished article Grace. There is far more pressure on him simply because of this. Even though I think he's further down the development path than Grace was in 2017, I think there'll be less patience around for him - and I fear there'll be more idiots calling him not fit to burn and writing him off if he's not as good as Grace was after 3/4 years of first team rugby.
He's not the Messiah, he's a naughty boy.
I've been critical of us signing Ritson and I don't think he'll be here long term (more of a stop gap with potential upside), but now he's wearing the red vee he deserves our support whilst he gets up to speed for us. Batchelor only really broke through over the last year or two and he's 28.
He deserves more of a chance than 50 minutes in a game with 21 subs.
Whilst that’s true, circumstances are harder. When Grace first got into the team, he was replacing and out of form (and injured?) Swift, whom didn’t hold huge rep with the fans, whom had had years of Matty Dawson and Jack Owens. He could afford to be green in some area of his game as the excitement he brought bought him the support of the fans.
Ritson on the other hand comes into a hugely demanding environment, challenging a 19 year old local lad who scored a try in the Grand Final the previous year, a Tongan international desperate for a good year to get the fans back onside, and a contract renewed and another homegrown natural winger whom probably would have broken through last year if it hadn’t have been for injuries.
It’s incredibly difficult justifying giving Ritson the time he needs, even more so with Sambou becoming a dark horse for the wing spot. As you say I’ll give Ritson my full support, but that 50 minutes with 21 subs may be his only chance for a while to justify his inclusion, and I would say on balance, Sambou gave a better account.
Sorry I wasn't particularly clear in my post, I didn't mean a run of games necessarily given by the club right now. More he deserves a couple more games (at some point) before it's fair to write him off completely. He's definitely down the pecking order and I'm sure the next few weeks will reflect that.
When is your Jon Bennison statue due to be finished and erected at the ground?
Great that there are options and opportunities for several players.
I'm sure sure several players (both new and fringe) will get opportunities in the backs.
On a cost and value basis Hopoate has the most to prove.
You could probably buy a Ritson ,Sambou and a Bennison for the price of a Hopoate.
That puts things in perspective.
Why don't we just see how this long challenging season plays out?
I mean, I make no secret I’m a Bennison fan, and have repeatedly said that whomever came in as a winger needed to be demonstrably better than what we had this year, otherwise we may as well stick with the same project rather than just restarting with someone else. Though in this particular instance all I have said is Bennison scored a try in the GF (which is just a statement of fact) and offers a higher threshold for Ritson, then Swift, Dawson, Owens did for Grace which … I don’t think is a high bar…
Totally agree Hopoate is hard to justify, I think he’s going to be in the frame for wing during the WCC and that’s it. It’s the type of game where he can just be a safe pair of hands, he knows the Aussie game well, but he will either come through unscathed and will live inside to centre, or get injured again. Obviously, Ritson may be showing things in training which we don’t see which keeps him ahead of the other two, but if he doesn’t start against Cas I don’t think the fans will be calling for his inclusion based on the friendly.
Where’s the point in the off-season if it’s not full of wild uninformed speculation
Ritson will need a very good centre to develop his game, just hoping we see a lot of games from Percival otherwise Ritson might not progress quickly. I remember I think it was 2 seasons ago Grace had a try scoring drought and didn't see a lot of quality ball because he had 5 different centres that season.
For me Ritson will have to prove he a better option than Bennison, once he does that then we can see a bit further down the track. He will become a better player in Saints structure, stronger more conditioned and defence minded for Superleague level.
Things run a bit deeper than just Percival playing regulalrly.
Percival's style has developed into a battering ram on tackle 1/2 with a bit of kick chase.
So by playing is no guarentee of good service to his winger.
That's not just on Percival either its the whole left edge.
There's plenty of talent. Percival Sironen/Mata'utia and Dodd is a star studied left edge.
However leaving the disruption of 2022 aside , attack over the past 2/3 years has distilled down to a setup and the winger miss ball.
The compaision to a Sullivan Newlove joynt martyn left edge is useful.
Both have/had quality in abundence and all can do great things individually.
but the latter had the ability to attack as a unit with different options.
Today's left edge is a group of great individuals runing to a very limited set of plays.
Perhaps a symptoym of the modern game and certainly one for the new coaching team to consider.
Therefore a more complex issue than things being all on Ritson or Percival being around.
That left hand edge has been pretty bad for partnerships and understanding over the last 2 seasons. We've had Bennison, Grace, Davies, Knowles, Sironen, Matautia, Percival, Bentley and Doddy working that side. On the right hand edge it was mainly Makinson, Lomax, Hurrell, Batchelor and Naiqama.
Coote use to favour the left edge but we seem to have Welsby using the right edge a bit more last season, our kicking game was also more to the right last season for Batchelor and Makinson. If we do get a Ritson and Percival partnership going it will take a bit of time. My understanding is that Wello wants to increase our attacking shapes across the whole backline so we might see some changes further down the track, we lost a lot of attacking switch plays to isolate the full back when Doddy got injured, hope to see more creative plays now he is back.