The Welsh international winger’s current deal was set to expire at the end of this season but he has now committed himself to the red vee for a further two years. Grace has been an ever-present in the side since breaking into it on Good Friday 2017 under the interim coaching team of Derek Traynor, Jamahl Lolesi and Sean Long. The trio were placed in temporary charge after the departure of Keiron Cunningham and one of their first acts was to promote Grace from the under-19s side into the first team. Grace made an immediate impression, running all over the Wigan defence that day to the tune of 160 metres on 15 carries and a debut try. He was unfortunate to be on the end of a 29-18 defeat as Saints lost Kyle Amor early to a fairly dubious red card decision.
Since when Grace has scored 33 tries in 62 appearances for the Saints. He is the club’s leading try-scorer in 2019 so far with four and looks to have convinced Holbrook that he is ahead of Adam Swift for that left-wing berth. Swift is currently injured but has been very much a back-up option since the emergence of Grace. Swift is out of contract at the end of this season and while it would be nice to retain both of them the decision to put such faith in Grace may leave Swift questioning whether he wants to commit or look for first team rugby elsewhere.
Yet even after nearly 60 games Grace divides opinion among the Saints fans. He still has flaws in his game. He is vulnerable under the high ball and often has problems coping with the physical demands placed upon him. Along with opposite winger Tommy Makinson and centres Mark Percival and Kevin Naiqama Grace is often tasked with carrying the ball out from deep inside his own half early in the tackle count. All of which means getting acquainted with forwards who are significantly bigger than the slightly built Grace. It takes a toll, and led to costly errors in his own half early in his career. Latterly Grace seems to have ironed those out of his game but it is still fairly wince-inducing when he flies in to the line of defence while prop forwards playing 20 minutes a week trudge back onside. It’s not the modern way, but it would be lovely to see Grace get instructions to keep the chalk on his boots out wide and leave the hard yards to the bigger guys.
Grace’s relationship with Percival on that left side is a perplexing one at times also. Quite often the pair look as though they are meeting on a staff away day for the first time. Often you get the feeling that if one were asked to fall backwards to let the other catch him a serious injury would ensue. There seems to be little cohesion between them, either because Percival misjudges when to release the ball or because Grace has got caught in a bad position in support. Yet when it clicks between them it is undeniably one of the most exciting sights in the sport. Very few players have the raw speed of Grace over a short distance and so invariably when Percival or Zeb Taia do manage to get the ball to him in space he leaves defenders in his wake. He still has a tendency to look around him while in space, waiting to see who is around to give him the next whack of his young career, instead of pinning his ears back and sprinting away.
Again this is something that he has improved upon so far in 2019 but you still wouldn’t categorise him with former Saints greats like Darren Albert or Anthony Sullivan for whom half a yard of space led to widespread gate-shutting and the turning out of lights. Grace has all the speed and elusiveness he needs to be a success at Super League level but to fulfil his true potential he needs to add that ruthless streak to his finishing. At this stage of his career it is even arguable that Swift is the better finisher of the two but you get the feeling that Holbrook feels he can improve that part of Grace’s game.
Grace’s critics also point to his slighter frame as a reason to believe that he is not as reliable defensively as he could be. Yet the 22-year-old has missed only five of his fairly modest 21 tackle attempts to far this season. Considering he has directly squared up to the likes of Tom Davies, Ben Jones-Bishop and Tom Briscoe so far this season his defensive efforts have been solid enough. It is not so much the physical act of tackling that he has issues with but rather his decision making at times. He is still prone to flying out of the line to leave others exposed but that is a trait of many of the three-quarters currently plying their trade in Super League. It’s a high risk strategy. If it works and the play is shut down you’re a hero, but if you get it wrong and leave your opponent with a walk-in you get some rather less enjoyable attention. In many ways you may have to live with that with Grace throughout his career, but under the tutelage of Holbrook he should make some improvements in this area. We should see him get it right more than he gets it wrong as his young career progresses.
Last week’s announcement of the return of the Great Britain Lions brand should serve as a huge incentive to the likes of Grace. He has been one of the few players identified as a candidate for breaking up what will probably be the English dominance of the squad which tours New Zealand and Papua New Guinea in the autumn. If not this tour then he has time on his side to make future tours and could, if his new deal at Saints works out as planned, become one of the all-time great Welsh players in Saints history alongside the likes of Sullivan, Scott Gibbs, Kel Coslett, Roy Mathias and of course Cunningham.
No comments:
Post a Comment