No way should Payne play centre for us! Great player, but we have two of the most exciting young centres in Ireland in Marshall and Spence, a current Ireland international in Wallace and two excellent club players in Cave and Whitten. Thats serious strength in depth- five very decent Irish centres- and bringing in Payne to play centre would be a bit nuts. Nah, he'll play fullback.
As for our centres- I think Spence and Cave is the right partnership for us right now. But Luke Marshall has to be given a chance to play in this team, he's simply too talented. I think he has to be accommodated on the bench for us. He can cover fullback, Spence can cover wing.
Suffice to say that even without Wallace we have three great centres, so whoever McLaughs picks he's gonna get some grief from the keyboard warriors
As for Whitten- I rate him and I think he's developing a nice offloading game. But he may well end up on the wing though because we have four quality players and it's very hard to compete. Wallace is still an important player for us; a lot of experience there.
I agree Spence is not a complete 12, but the way we're playing in the first two games of the season we're using 15 as an auxiliary playmaker. This ameriolates his lack of distribution and his strike running is very effective.