And it’s been the case for some seasons now.

We lack pace



How are our new signings for next season going to address this?

To be fair, we've not had pace for years.
Penny (hated by many) and Riley (to some extent, had some) were our only pacy wingers of recent times. After that, you've to go back to Henare in the mid 90's, and then you've to go back to Forster (pre knee injury) and Dessie, for any wingers pace.
Our centres, on the whole are like carthorses.
... and bar (pre injury) Currie, you've to go back to my mancrush of Mark Roberts, and Mike Gregory, for any pace from the forwards.

I’d say Charnley has more pace than Riley ever had?

I’d agree our centres lack pace, but then when was the last pacey centre we had? 2011 is widely regarded as our best squad for many years: that had King, Bridge & Atkins in the centres I think with Monaghan & Riley / King on the wing. Again none blessed with real pace.

Briers and Hodgson at 6 & 1, only Myler at 7 had any real pace. What the team did have though was creativity in spades. Didn’t we score more points for that year than most teams have ever done?

Can't argue with any of this. Matty Ashton who we have signed is absolutely rapid, whether he gets in ahead of Lineham i'm not so sure but he looks a real talent albeit from highlight clips I've seen. Is Keanan Brand quick? I wouldn't know.

Our halves are no slouches either, Austin once through a gap is quick and Widdop isn't slow.

Mamo is the only person with real pace. I’d guess lineham is quicker than Charnley but he takes a while to get going! Riley was quick off the mark but had no top end gas. The quickest regular player was Atkins. Atkins had real gas when he was younger.

If those sort of guys got half a yard they were gone.

I don’t think any of our players getting half a yard on half way would make it
Ratchford didn’t twice in last years GF

Thats why i'm hoping we're going to try and put matty ashton in as a long term replacement, if he's got a decent pair of hands.

Lest we forget while Hodgo had an excellent pair of hands he also had the acceleration to zoom through a slightly hesitant defence whilst running outwide. Ratch hasn't for a while, and prefers to do the step that doesnt work as well now

One up rugby, without any support, is causing our outside backs to see no daylight whatsoever in the oppositions defence.

Comes to something when I’m looking enviously at RU players drawing a man and passing!

That’s a new low! Union is a better product at the moment but ball skills still clearly superior in League. Even Warrington, unless Patton is involved.

I can think of three brief windows when we had a player of genuine, express, pace:

1. Richard Henare in his first season (1996), he was not in the same shape in his second.

2. Graham Appo, from late 2002 through his Dream Team season 2003, before injuries and poor conditioning robbed him of a lot of pace.

3. Kevin Penny, from 2007 to around 2009 before injuries took the edge off his pace too.

Also I think there are different types of impressive pace. Des Drummond and Jonathan Davies were maybe slightly off the pace of the guys above, over the full length of the field, but they could get to max speed within a few steps which meant they could burn people off through a gap. Late 90s Toa Kohe-Love also gets a shout, again not quite as quick as those three, but his balance and ability to step and swerve at full speed made him unstoppable for a few seasons even in a mediocre side.

I never thought Riley was in the top grade for speed. Quick yes but not out of the ordinary. I'd put Allan Hunte ahead of Riley.

Some of our most prolific try scoring wingers were nothing more than average pace - Joel Monaghan and Fa'afili come to mind.

We could have Martin Offiah in his prime on the wing and we'd still be asking him to catch high kicks to the corner and take it up from the ptb.

Unless we engineer and persist with a more expansive gameplan, until we play with centres capable of putting their winger one on one or in space and until we get a lunatic of a prop who eats house bricks for lunch and can give our attack some space .......... we'll continue to struggle.