Serious explanation.
Watch him receive the ball (older games have some great examples, though I can't specifically recall). A good football player has a situation summed up and is acting from the moment the ball is in his hands. He wins the one on one as he has the advantage of being one step ahead from the get go. Agree? See Tonga's move on Ayshford as a perfect example. You'll notice Ayshford did not come up with a similar move.
Ayshford is a special for receiving the ball and stopping. You can actually see the cogs turning over. Now, he usually makes the right decision (often a skip to the outside as things turn out)... but he makes it too late. When he should have had the centre beaten and be in the process of drawing the winger, he's just starting to go wide. This is why he ends of over the sideline with regularity on the occasions he actually takes on a player. He's just doesn't look like a "footballer". Sure, he can run down the field with no one in front of him as he did when Thurston went down, but, really... who can't?
Sure a few people here have said he is young, he'll come good etc... which may well be the case with his defence. But a footballer is a footballer and he just isn't one.
To sum up my thoughts; you know that catch cry "good footballers seem to have more time than every one else"... well... he seems to have less than the standard NRL player.
We can bang on all we want - but if we want to get serious, the facts are that we can go to our old tapes and watch Collis repeatedly beating players at the same age, and looking classy doing it. But we can't find such footage of Ayshford.
If someone wants to actually come up with some opposing reasoning, I'd be glad to listen. At the moment all I'm hearing is "oh, he's just good okay'.
