21-man squad vs Hull KR
-
fozzieskem
- Posts: 6494
- Joined: Sat May 14, 2016 10:54 am
Re: 21-man squad vs Hull KR
Best team won and it wasn’t Wigan tonight
-
up the junction
- Posts: 360
- Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:42 am
Re: 21-man squad vs Hull KR
Borough looks natural at 9
Smith looks good but has a lot of learning to do , Shorrocks needs a headband
Smith looks good but has a lot of learning to do , Shorrocks needs a headband
-
Jonathon Kerr (JK)
- Posts: 199
- Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:29 pm
Re: 21-man squad vs Hull KR
We need to get back to having a first & second receiver rather than splitting the half’s on each side.
Hopefully there are some painful lessons learnt by Lam and Co. and we don’t witness anything like that again this season.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hopefully there are some painful lessons learnt by Lam and Co. and we don’t witness anything like that again this season.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Re: 21-man squad vs Hull KR
Just looking at the table and by the end of tomorrow we will probably be third. Catalan have 3 games in hand and Leeds have 2. With it only being the top 4 in the playoffs this year we really need to pull our finger out as we could easily be fifth when all the games have caught up and the way we are playing we won’t beat Saints, Warrington or Catalan.
Re: 21-man squad vs Hull KR
Agreed. I was very pleased with the two points v Cas, a side we struggle against and Lam goes and throws that hard work away with an idiotic team selection. We have played three games and he’s chopping and changing moving players positions around.Warrior20 wrote:Don’t think the changes where down to emotion. Think its just that Lam is clueless.Great grandad Harry ball wrote: ↑Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:30 pm You play your best 17, no room in this game for emotion or those not quite good enough.
He needs to pick his best 17 and stick with it most of the time. It’s a team game where you need to build up the understanding. Lam was amateurish tonight.
Re: 21-man squad vs Hull KR
On the upside, Powell's boys are getting a bit of a tanking too so far!
-
Wigan_forever1985
- Posts: 6568
- Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2006 9:50 pm
Re: 21-man squad vs Hull KR
My take
Hull KR probably won’t play that good again this season - they were full of energy and we weren’t
On team selection I’m going to buck the trend and call it ok - tonight proved we need our front line stars fit at the end of the season so overplaying them now doesn’t make sense rotating the squad makes sense sometimes it doesn’t work it didn’t tonight but in the grand scheme tonight doesn’t matter
Positives to take out of tonight were greenwood and smith
Hastings is doing too much at the moment and I can’t help feel it’s the void left from lockers - we don’t seem to know what to do with that 13 slot with him not there and feels to me like Hastings is playing 13 and 6 but ending up poor version of each
It was a bad night but hull turned up like a cup game and played really well
Hull KR probably won’t play that good again this season - they were full of energy and we weren’t
On team selection I’m going to buck the trend and call it ok - tonight proved we need our front line stars fit at the end of the season so overplaying them now doesn’t make sense rotating the squad makes sense sometimes it doesn’t work it didn’t tonight but in the grand scheme tonight doesn’t matter
Positives to take out of tonight were greenwood and smith
Hastings is doing too much at the moment and I can’t help feel it’s the void left from lockers - we don’t seem to know what to do with that 13 slot with him not there and feels to me like Hastings is playing 13 and 6 but ending up poor version of each
It was a bad night but hull turned up like a cup game and played really well
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure
-
EagleEyePie
- Posts: 443
- Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2019 9:42 pm
Re: 21-man squad vs Hull KR
It was a short turnaround so I can understand maybe resting a player or two if we absolutely have to, but his team selection looked more like he was underestimating Rovers.
If he wanted to rest Havard after all the minutes he's been putting in then fine, but he also rested Bullock. Between them they are our only middles likely to make good carries and make more than 100 metres per game. They were our best defenders against Caslteford too. All that work in attack and defence taken from the team. Add to that Smithies, who is generally the next best metre maker and a defender with a phenomenal work rate.
We all know what we get from Flower and Partington. Great defence but no dominant carries in attack. There's a place for players like that in the side, but you need some strong runners around them. Mitch Clark was poor in all aspects of the game and there's no way he should be keeping his place. We also saw Rovers pinpoint the weaknesses in Byrne's game. They've always been there but we're lucky enough to mask them when we're close to full strength. Havard and Smithies defend so well around the ruck that teams find it harder to target Byrne. Tonight he was exposed badly.
It's not like any player played particularly well. Smith did okay and I suppose should get some credit because despite making mistakes he did cause a few problems behind a poor pack. Our last tackle options were once again absolutely dreadful though. It doesn't help when Hastings keeps running the ball on the 4th tackle and leaving us with one kicking option who can be easily closed down.
Smith did have some trouble defensively up against Linnett, but that's the case with most young players and I don't think he actually did too badly. A lot of their tries came from some really poor reads from Manfredi, who had one of his worst games for Wigan. Maybe you could question whether Hardaker was dominant enough in the tackle but generally you'd expect the winger to trust his centre but tonight it looked like they were both uncertain. Compounding our right edge problems was Willie Isa, who decided when leaving the ball for French that he'd turn away from the play - meaning when French didn't get to it he was stood around wondering what was going on. Why would a rugby player ever take his eyes off where the ball is in defence?
On a more positive note they found Greenwood hard to bring down and there looked to be opportunities for him to threaten. It's a bit frustrating though that he doesn't seem to have the pace and mobility to break the line. He's difficult to tackle but he can also slow all momentum in attack whereas with Farrell you get a much quicker play the ball. I think it showed there may be more to come from him with more game time though. I just wish we'd stick him on the right edge and keep Farrell on the left. Faz isn't as threatening down the middle. Isa doesn't offer anything out wide but will tackle and run all day like you expect from a middle.
That performance was an absolute shambles though. I suppose the positive is that we have good players to bring back into the side and we've been winning games when we've had those players. We have also had a habit over the years of losing games like this - going back to Madge's time when we were embarrassed at home by Harlequins.
If he wanted to rest Havard after all the minutes he's been putting in then fine, but he also rested Bullock. Between them they are our only middles likely to make good carries and make more than 100 metres per game. They were our best defenders against Caslteford too. All that work in attack and defence taken from the team. Add to that Smithies, who is generally the next best metre maker and a defender with a phenomenal work rate.
We all know what we get from Flower and Partington. Great defence but no dominant carries in attack. There's a place for players like that in the side, but you need some strong runners around them. Mitch Clark was poor in all aspects of the game and there's no way he should be keeping his place. We also saw Rovers pinpoint the weaknesses in Byrne's game. They've always been there but we're lucky enough to mask them when we're close to full strength. Havard and Smithies defend so well around the ruck that teams find it harder to target Byrne. Tonight he was exposed badly.
It's not like any player played particularly well. Smith did okay and I suppose should get some credit because despite making mistakes he did cause a few problems behind a poor pack. Our last tackle options were once again absolutely dreadful though. It doesn't help when Hastings keeps running the ball on the 4th tackle and leaving us with one kicking option who can be easily closed down.
Smith did have some trouble defensively up against Linnett, but that's the case with most young players and I don't think he actually did too badly. A lot of their tries came from some really poor reads from Manfredi, who had one of his worst games for Wigan. Maybe you could question whether Hardaker was dominant enough in the tackle but generally you'd expect the winger to trust his centre but tonight it looked like they were both uncertain. Compounding our right edge problems was Willie Isa, who decided when leaving the ball for French that he'd turn away from the play - meaning when French didn't get to it he was stood around wondering what was going on. Why would a rugby player ever take his eyes off where the ball is in defence?
On a more positive note they found Greenwood hard to bring down and there looked to be opportunities for him to threaten. It's a bit frustrating though that he doesn't seem to have the pace and mobility to break the line. He's difficult to tackle but he can also slow all momentum in attack whereas with Farrell you get a much quicker play the ball. I think it showed there may be more to come from him with more game time though. I just wish we'd stick him on the right edge and keep Farrell on the left. Faz isn't as threatening down the middle. Isa doesn't offer anything out wide but will tackle and run all day like you expect from a middle.
That performance was an absolute shambles though. I suppose the positive is that we have good players to bring back into the side and we've been winning games when we've had those players. We have also had a habit over the years of losing games like this - going back to Madge's time when we were embarrassed at home by Harlequins.
Re: 21-man squad vs Hull KR
They have played three games FFS after weeks off and didn’t need resting but we got musical chairs. The playoffs are based on the top four this season so every game is really a must win game with the fixtures we have coming up.Wigan_forever1985 wrote:My take
Hull KR probably won’t play that good again this season - they were full of energy and we weren’t
On team selection I’m going to buck the trend and call it ok - tonight proved we need our front line stars fit at the end of the season so overplaying them now doesn’t make sense rotating the squad makes sense sometimes it doesn’t work it didn’t tonight but in the grand scheme tonight doesn’t matter
Positives to take out of tonight were greenwood and smith
Hastings is doing too much at the moment and I can’t help feel it’s the void left from lockers - we don’t seem to know what to do with that 13 slot with him not there and feels to me like Hastings is playing 13 and 6 but ending up poor version of each
It was a bad night but hull turned up like a cup game and played really well
We needed to take those two points for that reason and Lam should have only made changes forced on him by injury and suspension. He lost one of his hardest hitters to suspension and rested Tommy as well. Idiotic.
Resting several players and moving the rest around hardly ever works as tonight proved once again.
They key driver here is the top four is what we need to be in. No scope for experimentation.