i am not saying he should be hounded out of the club,his defensive positioning so far this season isnt up to scratch,he shouldnt be flying in off his wing to make tackles when a wingers ultimate goal after scoring trys is to stop his opposite number scoring,if the men inside are not doing the job then they will become fallible but deserting his post only puts the onus on him,
syslak,i didnt miss the grand final but i would say there were plenty of other key players in our team who had worse games than riley in the grand final,overall last season i thought he was one of our better performers.
kevin penny wasnt hounded out either when it came down to it all he had in his game was pace.

I don't often agree with you, Sir AM...

Well obviously that's your opinion and good for you, but have a look at Atkins defence this Friday, you might notice its occasionally uncontrolled and he lets his man go. He's usually pretty good just is a little careless at times. Otherwise both guys are a quality couple, they just are careless early in the season.

Whilst this thread is about Riley I see Atkins has been dragged into it. Atkins got caught on Friday by Leon Pryce whilst on the break. I believe that was due to the ground conditions. Should this game have been played on a dry day during May, June etc then Atkins would have scored and have been sat in the East stand with a cigar before Pryce would have been able to think knee or punch upon making contact.

You know, I think you are right. I was sipping my cocoa and sucking my Werthers Original this afternoon, and I got to thinking about this. I reckon if Penny hadn't been overly criticised he would probably be world class by now and probably playing in the NRL. And I hate to think what would have happened to Ken Parr and Brian Glover; no England cap for Parr and Glover's nerves would have been shredded, he would have been perennially in touch rather than squeezing in at the corner.

Of course you are quite right to criticise Rhys Williams, this is clearly a completely different issue altogether, and anyway he is Welsh. In fact for all I know, he is probably eccentric as well.

No, no. Read Brian's post properly, Atkins is eccentric (and apparently so was Matt King), this was the reason that he got caught. I assume he ran in an eccentric orbit, thereby allowing Pryce to run him down.