Lockers talking us up in the Wigan Observer

[warriordp]

Doveoverdave posted:

warriordp posted;
lockers is one of the most overhyped and overated players weve ever had his skill level for a loose forward or any play making role for that matter is garbage. LOCKERS FOR HUDDERSFIELD.

You don't know what your watching.

Forget Huddrsfield and think what may happen if Saints get hold of him!

Surrounded by that talent he would be mesmerising and would be the natural replacement for the fast ageing and fading star of Sculthorpe.

He would be around to haunt us for at least half a dozen or more years and it would be the biggest disaster at he club since the mishandling of Sean Long. (Not with standing relegation)

why do you keep defending him and saying things like he would shine in agood team and surrounded by talent he would be awsome do you not think he should be standing out now with the lack of flair on offer elsewhere on the field? ithought great players did that in poor sides which at this moment we sureley are!!!

[cpwigan]

Lockers is a quality player. Ask any professional and they will tell you that.

[DaveO]

cpwigan posted:
Lockers is a quality player. Ask any professional and they will tell you that.

What would they say if you asked them if he was a good captain? Or if you asked them if his tackling technique was good at the moment?

From my point of view those two areas of his game are open to justified crisism yet he is defended because he is putting the effort in despite the problems he has at the moment.

Orr puts the effort in as well,(including doing Lockers job of geeing up the troops) but has been deemed not good enough.

If Lockers "A" for effort is his saving grace despite an "E" for attainment at captaincy how come Orr's "A" for effort and "A" for attainment as a captain (in comparison to Lockers) does not have us signing his praises from the rooftops?

I am not saying we should be by the way but merely pointing out a case of double standards.

Dave

[jinkin jimmy]

It's not double standards. Lockers is playing poorly but still GB quality and Orr is playing to the best of his abilty and will never be capped again (has he been capped?). Personally, I speak up for Lockers because even though he is having a torrid time he is a class player who would be snapped up by any Superleague club and quite a few in Aus, whereas if Orr was released he would probably link up with Moran again in NL1.

I'm glad you mentioned Orr actually because I was going to bring his name up. I was going to ask how he keeps surviving when Brown and Moran have been hammered, firstly on here and then by the club.

I posted a while ago speculating who the pack on here would turn on next. I thought it might be Tickle, never dreamed it would be Lockers and kind of hoped it would be Orr if it had to be anyone.

[cpwigan]

Dave the only people who can validate O'Loughlin the captain are his teammates. The only one who has spoken is Fecka.

Why the concern about his tackling. He is an excellent tackler, one v one often stopping much bigger men. Yes, he has copped a few penalties for high tackles but that can be attributed to a poor whole team defensive line and having to cover holes etc. If he was such a bad defender who have 2 outstanding coaches both asked him frequently to move from his natural loose forward positioning out wide to one off the ruck where he's doing the prop forwards tackling workload.

If I wanted to be prissy I could say give a guy a go given he's recovering from a serios injury but I prefer not to. Nor do I see a need to. Why? well if he's in such bad form as some claim then he's still one of our best players even when he's playing poorly. He creates more tries than anybody else, he takes the ball up well and he works tremendously hard in defence. God help other teams when he's back to his supposed best.

Some players are simply not good enough no matter how hard they try. Orr for example.

The he only plays because of Faz is an absolute joke. O'Loughlin has earned everything he's got on his own back. The only good fortune he has had is to be born into a rugby league family that coached him skills far better than the sport does as a whole.

[mike binder]

Do they still coach skills :conf:

[cpwigan]

Not enough Mike NRL coaching has actually gone back to coaching basic skills even at first grade level. The argument being that if you have the basic skills perfect in practice then your more likely to execute them under pressure. That is borne out by the Tri-nations whereby they antipodeans make the vital plays under extreme pressure whereas we fumble or the pass goes to ground.

The number of pros who have family members who are ex pros is an indicement that THE SPORT fails to develop talent. In no other sport are so large a % of players heavily linked with former professionals.

[DaveO]

cpwigan posted:
Dave the only people who can validate O'Loughlin the captain are his teammates.

Why is that? We can all see he stands about and lets others do the talking.

Why is this not something he should be critisised about?

The way some go on it isn't allowed to mention the negative aspects of his current game for some reason.

Why is this? Because he tries? As I said, Orr tries hard as well and he cops flak.

The reason for this seems to be Lockers is class and Orr isn't so poor play from Lockers is OK.

I think that is absolutley bonkers because Lockers certainly isn't a class captain given what we can all see he does in that regard.

This is not the pack picking on a new scapegoat as pointig out Lockers is a poor captain is no different than saying DV has not pace.

Both seem pretty obvious to me.

Why the concern about his tackling. He is an excellent tackler, one v one often stopping much bigger men. Yes, he has copped a few penalties for high tackles but that can be attributed to a poor whole team defensive line and having to cover holes etc.

But he is the captain! If the defensive line is poor he should sort it out not give penalties away trying to cover its frailties himself as an individual.

He is in charge so if the team are letting him down making him tackle poorly its his job to get them to chip in and do the work.

Dave

[jinkin jimmy]

My stance on the captaincy is clear. I have always said it should have gone to Fletcher, notwithstanding the fact that he publicly stated he didn't want it. I don't really have a problem with Dave's post in that it is hard to disagree with criticism of Lockers' captaincy.
My biggest disagreement is with those who would advocate swapping Lockers for Langley or signing players such as Michael Smith whilst wanting the club to offload Lockers.

DaveO posted:
But he is the captain! If the defensive line is poor he should sort it out not give penalties away trying to cover its frailties himself as an individual.

I do struggle with this bit, however. If he has the abilty to get across to cover gaps in the defense then of course he has to do it! He can't very well stand there, watch someone run through a hole then think to himself "I'll have to sort this defence out"!

[Doveoverdave]

cpwigan posted:
Dave the only people who can validate O'Loughlin the captain are his teammates. The only one who has spoken is Fecka.

Why the concern about his tackling. He is an excellent tackler, one v one often stopping much bigger men. Yes, he has copped a few penalties for high tackles but that can be attributed to a poor whole team defensive line and having to cover holes etc. If he was such a bad defender who have 2 outstanding coaches both asked him frequently to move from his natural loose forward positioning out wide to one off the ruck where he's doing the prop forwards tackling workload.

If I wanted to be prissy I could say give a guy a go given he's recovering from a serios injury but I prefer not to. Nor do I see a need to. Why? well if he's in such bad form as some claim then he's still one of our best players even when he's playing poorly. He creates more tries than anybody else, he takes the ball up well and he works tremendously hard in defence. God help other teams when he's back to his supposed best.

Some players are simply not good enough no matter how hard they try. Orr for example.

The he only plays because of Faz is an absolute joke. O'Loughlin has earned everything he's got on his own back. The only good fortune he has had is to be born into a rugby league family that coached him skills far better than the sport does as a whole.

:eusa2: :eusa2:
Well said.

I'm glad I'm not on mine own here as I am getting fed up of posting the exact same sentiments as above.

Keep up the good work!