its a shame the way he's left especially since he's in his testimonial year, for all the good stuff warrington seem to do, we always seem to balls up sending long term players out in awkward fashion, its been happening for years.
Atkins got ousted from his favoured left centre position for goodwin who has a tremendous left foot step (i'm not sure we've had great value for money from him overall but thats another thread) so he got shifted to the right whereupon he was in and out of the team as toby king started combining with charnley better.
We've mooted the possibility of moving him into the back row as he is a very strong ball runner, with good metres after contact and a quick PTB, however it's never happened, and i can't recall him filling in there ever over 10 years.
Whilst there's a lot of fans sad to see him leave like this without a proper send off, there's also a fair few that lost patience with him a while ago on his reluctance to pass to his winger, and on the occasions he did they were awkward offloads that usually went into 2nd row of the crowd.
I've enjoyed having him here, he was part of the tony smith revolution, i wasn't keen when we first signed him as he had displayed no ability to tackle when i'd seem him playing for you, but that came along pretty quick.
All the best Rhino.
