Wigan Squad for Salford

[Shemtatupu]

Just very very poor we look.terrified on their line no ideas, and yes I'll say it again what does Smithies add to this team in attack

Careful WIGIAN.
We make Smithies the new scapegoat

Theres much worse than smithies( he tries) look at byrne ellis and KPP( the most overrated playerin SL imo)

Who rates Ellis and Byrne? Moaning for moaning's sake

[DaveO]

So Powell he's good in defence and has a passing game of sorts so... Bevan 1 Field 6 Cust 9 Powell 13. Still think taking 2 early doors was disastrous lost all.momentum . Still drier pitches better threat.

If Powell isn’t good enough for 9 why does he even make the 17? Selections are surely not about fitting him in the team come what may? As to him having a passing game of sorts, he really doesn’t. The only thing he can do is tackle.

[EagleEyePie]

We were second best for most of that game but managed to drag ourselves back into it and get a win we almost certainly didn't deserve if you judged the teams on a full 80 minute performance. Salford probably felt they let the game slip away as much as we might think we won it.

For most of the game it was uninspiring. I thought their front row outperformed ours and yet again none of our middles really made much of a sustained impact. Nothing much to threaten Salford from Pearce-Paul in the back row again so it was pretty much a case of wondering where something might come from.

We definitely started looking more threatening once French moved to fullback. Part of that is because he's simply the best fullback we have and far more dangerous in that position. Another part of it is because we were simply better without Cust in the halves. We got more threatening but the timing and positioning was a little off at times. Powell coming on at 13 helped us get the balance in attack right. It just wasn't quite working with Smith and Field in the halves initially and the extra pivot made their jobs so much easier.

French will deservedly get the plaudits but we don't make that comeback without Farrell. We get space to work the ball wide to the right because Farrell has made such a strong carry on the left. We get the metres to get us in a good position because Farrell makes a strong carry. If you need a late rally you need Farrell because he's as energetic on 75 minutes as he is after 5.

[DaveO]

Having just got back I don’t think I have felt as ambivalent to us winning tonight for as long as I can remember.

People often use the term “winning ugly” when a team wins despite a poor performance. I think Wigan tonight invented a new one, “winning clueless”.

For 70 minutes they didn’t look like they knew what they were doing. Some of the passing was atrocious. Half the time the team stood still watching the player with the ball. The half backs looked like strangers.

The turning point was when Smith kicked long and we pinned Salford in their own half and with the sustained pressure Salford buckled but until then it was one man RL.

We were fortunate Salford tired and we ended up with the two points.

[Mickw]

I just think ultimately the forwards aren't laying the platform, we hardly ever had Salford on the back foot,they're not getting over the game line often enough or getting up to play the ball quickly enough.

[DaveO]

French will deservedly get the plaudits but we don't make that comeback without Farrell. We get space to work the ball wide to the right because Farrell has made such a strong carry on the left. We get the metres to get us in a good position because Farrell makes a strong carry. If you need a late rally you need Farrell because he's as energetic on 75 minutes as he is after 5.

I agree about Farrell. He made some telling carries in the last part of the game.

[WIGIAN]

So Powell he's good in defence and has a passing game of sorts so... Bevan 1 Field 6 Cust 9 Powell 13. Still think taking 2 early doors was disastrous lost all.momentum . Still drier pitches better threat.

If Powell isn’t good enough for 9 why does he even make the 17? Selections are surely not about fitting him in the team come what may? As to him having a passing game of sorts, he really doesn’t. The only thing he can do is tackle.

As does Morgan i know ill get slated but just dont see it as a loose , he adds no more than Isa other than giving away more penalties . But hey he's a tryer right . Would you keep him over say Knowles ? It's not about his effort that's not in question its about his worth as an attacking threat which loose forward should be .

[widdenoldboy]

French will deservedly get the plaudits but we don't make that comeback without Farrell. We get space to work the ball wide to the right because Farrell has made such a strong carry on the left. We get the metres to get us in a good position because Farrell makes a strong carry. If you need a late rally you need Farrell because he's as energetic on 75 minutes as he is after 5.

I agree about Farrell. He made some telling carries in the last part of the game.

How many times did Croft have to tackle Farrell in the game, took some gas out of him TBF.

[DaveO]

It's sadly not funny and true.
O'Neil offered more at hooker but until Powell came back we where leaderless on the pitch. Farrel is a key player and leads by example but he's not a general.

Probably an unpopular opinion but we are missing TL on the pitch a d didn't replace him with a leader.

Powell had nothing to do with it.
Moving French to FB gave him more freedom and it opened up Salfords defence, Fiwls offered more as half because Cust had a mare.
Our two best players pull us out of the s**t again

Interesting that because French had been at FB alot longer than the 10 min we turned up.like it or not our turn around coincided with Powell coming back on.

"Correlation does not imply causation" and if you actually bothered to watch the game as opposed to making such a ridiculous link you’d know Powell wasn’t the spark of anything.

[fozzieskem]

Jesus wept that was far harder than it needed to be Salford as we know can turn games into a bloodbath when they are in the mood,that wasn’t tonight thankfully and somehow Wigan scraped a win

What on earth has happpened to the free flowing rugby of last year this is Lam ball once more and it’s bloody awful to watch and one that won’t win things,I just hope as we head into the warmer weather things improve as it stands Saints will beat Wigan in a fortnight and with some ease I just don’t see anything other than that,the half back pairing seem not to have met each other,King again doesn’t seem to want to pass to French,Field looks brittle at fullback,French looked far better when he went to FB I’ll grant you.

I don’t know what the answer is but to see the side spluttering as they are doing is worrying