Tom Wright - The Great Wright Hope
I'm struggling to remember someone with more hype than him in the last few years. I just don't see what others see in this guy as an all round package. He carved up in attack against kids his age, but if he was really a standout in ISP he'd already be in team given our injury toll. I think the fact that we have played 4 other outside back depth players in front of him this year shows where he is at. I get the wishful thinking that we have a superstar on our hands, but at the moment I haven't seen any consistent evidence of that potential being realised.
I'd cop seeing him given a go on the wing as an option, just to see if he can lift to that NRL level, but personally I think it'd be madness to play him anywhere else at this stage - especially 5/8. He may well be the next Turbo, Ponga or Gutho, but he could also just as easily be the next Aaron Goom or Luke Dorn. Anyway we only need one more injury to a back over the next couple of weeks and he is there by default, so we may yet get the question answered.
It always makes me laugh or just roll my eyes when I see these people on social media, mostly Facebook, who continually bang on and on about the fact that we should be playing Wright at 5/8, he's a gun blah blah blah. Yet I have actually asked quite a few of these people if they have ever actually seen him play either live or on television, and nearly every time the answer is "I've seen his YouTube highlights". In other words, they've seen one or more 3 minute or so videos of him carving up the U/20s and that's it, which apparently means he's the next superstar.....
YouTube highlights are exactly that, highlights. They don't show that he is a poor defender. They don't show that he still lacks consistency in his game right now, playing roughly 1 good game in 3 or 4. And these people also ignore the fact that the club doesn't even see his future in the halves, they want him in the centres where he can use his running game more effectively where he doesn't have to worry about running the team. He's only been playing 5/8 for Blacktown because while Hastings was on the first grade bench for the early part of the season there literally was no one else at BW who was an anywhere near decent enough pivot. But now that Jacko has been banished back to NSW Cup and is playing in their halves (and with Suli currently in 1st grade), Wright is finally where the club wants him to be in the centres.
Personally, unless injury dictated it, I wouldn't be starting him right now in first grade, not even on the wing. I don't think he's ready for it yet. When he does finally play first grade at some point this year, I think he should and probably will come off the bench as the utility and be eased into it rather than throwing him in the deep end and telling him to swim like we did with Croker, though that was more circumstance than by design as Barrett was never going to play Hastings.
I agree with C&C, the fact that so far we've gone with Croker (5/8), the other two Wright's and Parker (W/C/FB), Suli (C) and both Hastings and Brown as the bench utility ahead of Tom Wright says a lot about where he is in his development.
Ponga has him covered there by some margin. I think Jakey got the ball skills in the family.
