Re: Key players : Thu Jan 06, 2022 10:40 pm
vastman wrote:
sandcat20 wrote:
One of the reasons that TJ is a key player is that other teams fear him, particularly in open space or broken play. He therefore can distract and distort the opposition's defence giving opportunities on the other side of the field.
Spot on.
Martin Offiah was a naturally great winger no doubt but once he became established he put the fear of god into the opposition and that allowed him to score tries he really shouldn’t have, because players held off and panicked. He won Wigan games that they wouldn’t have with any other winger.
TJ is the same for us, the amount of games he’s either won for us or got us back into is huge.
He’s vital, he’s our no one strike weapon.
Spot on. He has as you say dragged us back into a number of games with either his defence destroying runs, a try or a quality assist.
There is absolutely no denying TJ’s quality and class. If we can get more than 15 games out of him this reason we will reap the benefits. He was unlucky last year so I’m expecting he will be fit and ready to go after a good 4/5 month break.
We do need to utilise him a bit smarter though. He needs better service and space from kicks he can challenge and needs some early ball in space too. If Hall is to be his centre Hall will help himself shine by finding passes to put TJ in the clear. While I don’t have an issue with TJ taking the odd drive in early in kick returns I would much rather we use our centres for this where possible.