Personally I don’t ever see Charlie getting our full back gig.
Just me, maybe, but he just isn’t going to deliver the run metres required of the modern fullbacks.
He doesn’t offer much on his limited hit ups currently so I simply can’t see it changing if he was our fullback.
If we crave this ball playing fullback then frankly it is another no for Charlie. He offers nothing in the ball playing aspect.
His try scoring record is great, but 99% have been catch the ball and put it down over the line, he does that well.
Im not sure where we go with Charlie going forward, if he has terrific speed, we certainly aren’t taking full advantage of it. The Sea Eagles winger case in point, he has scored breathtaking tries based on pure speed, something we are yet to see from Charlie.
I can't see how any of us know what he is capable of. He has played one game at fullback. He has shown he has a good pass, anticipates the game well leading to tries and often shutting down attacks before they can start.
In his first proper season he is our top try scorer and averages 90m a game. Currently he sits at 20 tries in 20 games. I see people commenting all he has to do is catch the ball and fall over the line, even though Mansour didn't seem to be able to do that easily. No, he has to be in the right position to get the ball and give himself a chance to score, because he reads the game well, he makes that look easy.
In spite of the fact he is built like a brown snake, he doesn't mind taking the ball up and getting bashed and his tackles percentage is 80%. I would like to see him run from dummy half more to help the defence, with his acceleration he should be able to get cheap metres, but rucking the ball up like Too can wait until he has built up a bit more.
I would like to see what a fit Charlie Staines can do with a few extra kilos of muscle. It will give him more confidence and I hope the club also gets him a specialist sprint coach like Roger Fabri so he doesn't lose his speed and hopefully increases it.
If there is one area in our fitness training that seems to be lacking, it is in speed. You need specialist training to improve raw speed and none of our guys seem to be very quick. Charlie has shown glimpses, but only glimpses. Maybe Blade can answer whether we have a specialist sprint coach? Every player who spends time with Fabri ends up improving, do we have somebody like that at the Panthers?