Byrne v Tony v Briscoe v Hall

Byrne v Tony v Briscoe v Hall v Thorman v R.Horne

Just for completeness, Hall missed 1 in 4 tackles last season and made 1.4 errors per game. This is why it's not a "no-brainer" for Agar to include him at FB. I know I'm in a minority of one on here, but I'm not convinced about Hall. That said I'd rather see him at FB with Horne and Thorman in the halves than Thorman at FB and Washy/Horne in the halves.

TBF Hall did play in 17 positions last season.

And was flaky in most of them.

Not playing at fullback mainly, though. There, you have less tackles to make and they're pretty much always one-on-one with time to get into position and with the sole aim of bringing the ball carrier down (usually). That's much different to being at centre (possibly the hardest position to defend in).



(And all that's without taking into account the statistics possibly not being completely reliable, maybe.)

He did play a few games off the bench though so he does have a high error rate - 3rd highest per game of anyone in the competition last year.



Look, I do think Hall is an outstanding attacking talent. I'm just not convinced that he's robust enough in defence or decision-making. Having him as the last line of defence vs a very strong, physical Catalans team doesn't fill me with confidence and I'm not bothered that no one else shares this opinion. Just pointing out that there is evidence to suggest that he's not the next best thing, even though everyone else on here thinks he is.

That's no surprise for someone with his style of attacking game.







I'd have him at fullback ahead of Byrne anyway, so not even 'next best' for me.

Likewise.

You have an amazingly short memory Scott. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me but I seem to remember the first few games of last season where Motu couldn't catch a bomb to save his life. Berrigan ending up dropping a kick off in one game becasue he moved over to cover for Motu who was cacking his pants. Dozens of people where booing around me in the south stand and screaming for him to be brought off, maybe that was a different Motu Tony? I was also at the Warrington away game where he struggled. It's no myth Scott, other teams know he has a weakness and pin point it.

He probably only dropped 4/5 all year. I remember all these idiots getting on his back around me because he dropped a kick off from Pat Richards, despite it somehow being rediculous to catch. I dont know how he did it but it was moving about all over the place and spinning about. We dropped a couple of his kicks in that game.

Mmmmm...fans critising a player are deemed idiots..........More like the Wakefield game where he was bloody attroucious.

To be fair though S Briscoe has made 5 errors already this season Motu made 7 overall last year and as you say a fair few must of come in the wakefield game

Think they all did........god awful display i must admit.....fair play to him though...got better as we went on...pity the team didnt...lol

So even Berrigan dropped the one your saying, does that not say maybe the kicking was of a high skill level? I seem to remember a few sycastic cheers when he caught one, I am sure booing and cheering in that way is really condusive to helping a player with low confidence in a certain area of his game. after those games how many did he drop, he only made 7 errors all season

Exactly well said.

I think the main reason some have a problem with Motu is that they liked Briscoe so much, so I suppose its understandable.I would of liked to have kept Briscoe but he went so Motu/Hall/Bryne it is

The one Berrigan dropped should have been Motu's ball, Berrigan went to catch it because Motu had already dropped 2.

Full back is increasingly becoming the most difficult position to occupy on the pitch. The kicking techniques that are in place now mean it is very difficult to position correctly. Trying to set your body when trying to take a spiral bomb, for example, is near impossible and thats why you see full backs moving all over the place to take them.



I think full backs deserve more recognition than they do get when they collect a bomb these days

So you're just going to ignore the statistics because they disagree with your argument?



OK then.

What stats have I ignored? I saw with my own eyes Motu Tony drop a number of bombs.

The stats I posted earlier that showed Tony as making fewer mistakes than Byrne.



Tony dropped a couple of bombs in the first two or three games. After that he was no worse than anyone else.



Even the never-to-be-criticised Briscoe dropped the odd bomb.

Hardly a fair comparison when we're 2 games into the season.

[url=http://www.superleague.co.uk/statistics_player.php?hs1=2008&hp1=1138&hs2=2008&hp2=1207&stat=tries&season=2009OK then - the whole of last season.[/url



You'll notice that Tony missed 10 tackles in 14 games and Byrne missed 32 in 18 games. You'll also notice that Tony came up with 7 errors in 14 games and Byrne came up with 17 errors in 18 games.



Now - which would you say looked the safest?

As Disraeli said "Lies, damn lies and statistics."





Byrne only played 5 games at full back last season, the rest were on the wing or centre so we're not comparing like for like.



I don't really care enough about it to argue the point. I like Motu as a player, I just don't think he's a good full back, just a personal thing, plenty of people agree with me, but I guess just as many will disagree. I'm quite happy at the moment to have Byrne playing at full back, Motu will have to win his place back IMO which is the way it should be, no one should guaranteed a spot in the team.