Who's fault was Saturday?

[GeoffN]

As usual people are taking far too black and white a view of things and like to pin blame on the usual scapegoats for everything.

Roberts is the villain or Noble it seems. Noble gets blamed for bringing Bailey back - his injury was a freak accident and nohing to do with his dead leg.

Who wouldn't have brought Lockers back?

Me for one. I've said for years that players coming back from a lengthy injury/suspension should have to prove their fitness in the reserves first. I'm a massive Lockers fan, as everyone knows, but I would apply the same rule to him.

Feka has been playing in our team for the past two years, yet Nobby get the blame for bringing him onto the pitch in the wire game.

At the wrong time. Just because the 20 minutes were up. Despite the fact that we were defending at the time.

The truth of the matter is that wire played to their game plan for 15 - 20 mins of the game, we played to ours for around 15 - 20 mins of the game. Going into the last 10 mins they were on the ropes and were gifted possession by a dodgy decision and Briers was in an ideal position to make the game safe.

I'm quite happy to discuss whether Nobby isn't the most enlightened coach - and there are far better coaches around, but not everything that goes wrong is his fault and to try and say it is just devalues any points or views people may have IMO.

For all the talk of how smith outcoached Nobby, the fact is that the players we had on the pitch made a number of significant personal mistakes which were nothing to do with Smiths game plan (and i'm not talking about the Roberts/King mismatch) - and we were still within 1 score of them going into the last 10 mins.

Regardless of what people think about Noble game plan if the players had executed better we would have stood a great chance of wining the game.

We got our share of dodgy decisions too, they pretty much balanced out over the game.

[DaveO]

As usual people are taking far too black and white a view of things and like to pin blame on the usual scapegoats for everything.

Roberts is the villain or Noble it seems. Noble gets blamed for bringing Bailey back - his injury was a freak accident and nohing to do with his dead leg.

Who wouldn't have brought Lockers back?

I think the flak Noble takes for these decision is it ignores how the side was playing when they were absent. It would take a brave coach not to have picked Lockers because whether he is a great player or not he is perceived to be an essential part of the team by many. So Noble was in a no win situation here but he did make the decision I expected. It was however a semi final and not ideal to make your come back.

Bailey had not been missed so Noble isn't being slagged off because he got an unrelated injury but because he could have easily justified leaving him out given the form of the replacement.

Feka has been playing in our team for the past two years, yet Nobby get the blame for bringing him onto the pitch in the wire game.

It isn't the first time this season Feka has come on at an inappropriate time in the game i.e. when we were defending. He has been here two years as you say and IMO Noble still does not know how to use him wisely. He doesn't even use him well when we are on attack. 99% of the time he is the dummy runner when we are 10m from the line. Give him the ball on occasion!

The truth of the matter is that wire played to their game plan for 15 - 20 mins of the game, we played to ours for around 15 - 20 mins of the game. Going into the last 10 mins they were on the ropes and were gifted possession by a dodgy decision and Briers was in an ideal position to make the game safe.

Noble was definitely out coached. It wasn't decided in the last 10 mins by a bad decision. He had no answer to Roberts being targeted, subbed by the clock and chose to bring back the experienced players for a semi final.

He says we were taught a lesson. I thought that happened v Les Cats in the last semi we were in when we also shipped over 30 points. We do not seem to learn under Noble the lessons we are taught.

I'm quite happy to discuss whether Nobby isn't the most enlightened coach - and there are far better coaches around, but not everything that goes wrong is his fault and to try and say it is just devalues any points or views people may have IMO.

There is no way he was blameless for the loss either.

For all the talk of how smith outcoached Nobby, the fact is that the players we had on the pitch made a number of significant personal mistakes which were nothing to do with Smiths game plan (and i'm not talking about the Roberts/King mismatch) - and we were still within 1 score of them going into the last 10 mins.

Regardless of what people think about Noble game plan if the players had executed better we would have stood a great chance of wining the game.

We lost direction (and the game) when Feka and Fielden came on. Who called those substitutions? Why didn't he do something about the Roberts situation? He failed to spot or deal with the threat of Monahan which was a deliberate ploy of Smith. He ran round rings round Feka like he was stationary. It was, as usual, Plan A and no plan B.

Dave

[cpwigan]

It was not that Warrington did anything unusual. They always play off Monaghan down the left because Monaghan is a leftie. That create a lot of room for a tackle 4 big passing move with Briers on the right and if unsuccessful, Briers then kicks the ball crossfield back to the left.

For Mossop not to be in the 17 was a travesty IMO and guess where Mark Flannagan prefers to defend? Right side bang where leftie Monaghan wants to scoot too. Locker? Place on the bench so he did not have to play anywhere near the full 80.

[Big Steve]

To be fair, i actually agree with lots of points made above.

I think if we paid a bit more attention to some of the smaller details in the game then we remove many of the weaker points to our game and make us harder to beat. We seem to continually make the same mistakes, and ultimately that comes down to overall quality of coaching.

[EDINBURGH-WARRIOR]

I dont know if anyone else noticed but Wigan finished their pre-game warm up about 10 minutes before kick-off and were wandering aimlesly about the pich while Pat was practicing his kicking.Wire were still flat out warming up. Wigan coaching staff should have been out there winding them up so they were ready to tear the heads of any Wire player that came near them after kick-off .I mentioned this to my son at the time the whole thing seemed very flat .