Wires71 wrote:
All face balls from Hodgson cutting out the centre
Anyway I'm not sure what point your are mooting here - we have had a wealth of good centres or one or two in the last 15 years?
I think the lack of centres is quite a recent problem - last 5 seasons.
In the earlier, successful TS era, we had King, Atkins and Bridge. Grix and Ratchford spent time in the centres too. By SL standards those are all very good options, worthy of a top side. In the 2000s we had Gleeson, Grose, Kohe-Love and Hunte. Other than Gleeson those were perhaps less consistent performers over time than the ones TS had, but any of those four at their best could rival the ones TS had. I think we would take any of them now. And of course in the 1990s, we had Bateman and Davies, and for one season Nigel Vagana too.
The problem has really been since Bridge and Grix left, and Atkins went in to a slow decline. We had high hopes for Rhys Evans but he wasn't the answer. We've found "OK" options in Toby King and Goodwin, but it hasn't been a position of strength. If we still had any two from those I mentioned in the paragraph above I think we'd be very strong.