He has never really made the grade in the NRL, despite having plenty of opportunities. He may do better in Super League, but at the end of the day he is only going to be cover for Long and Horne. So he'll probably get a lot of game time

He has nearly a hundred appearances.



Where he struggles is the organising/dictating plays.

Does he have a kicking game, Sheldon? This is an area we're lacking IMO - Long didn't hit the spot last season, Horne generally pinpoints the FB on the full with deadly accuracy and we don't use Houghton or Tickle in this area enough for me.

I think Houghton should be utilised more, if it's possible. In the few kicks I've seen him do he seemed to be pretty decent.

So, the main thing we miss when Long is out then?



Still think we need a lot of work getting the team better drilled to help the halves out, TBH. We shouldn't be so reliant on one player to do all the organising.

Yep. We have a few different types of kicker - Long's pretty good at bombs, Tickle and Whiting both have a long kick on them, Houghton couild be used more, Tansey got 2 40/20s last season. It just seems that we more often than not kick straight to the FB. Need some Brough-type efforts that slow up just short of the dead ball line and turn the opposition round.

In theory shouldn't all the players know the plays regardless of who is present in the halves? The halves need the skills the execute the plays but everyone should know where they should be at any given point, in theory.

Very average.

Exactly. It's why the likes of Saints and Leeds had much less disruption than us when coping with injuries to their halves. A youngster comes in and knows exactly what is required of him and what the players around him will be doing. We, on the other hand (and I've made this comparison before), end up looking like an under 11s side desperately looking round for an adult to tell them what to do next.

In the past 4 seasons he's played behind poor packs, when he played behind a half decent one(in 2006) he excelled.



I'm hoping he surprises me.

In my mind, I have houghton as being a good long-kicker. I remember him kicking a few and those landing just in play, making it awkward for the fullback.

My memory isn't perfect, though.

Yes but at 27 that's not a lot of games, but the Warriors released him and now the Cowboys have.



Didn't he spend much of last season playing in the lower leagues?



Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he can do a job for us. I'd rather see him in the halves than Washbrook, but he's not the answer, just a stop gap until we hopefully sign a quality half back for 2012.