Calderwood exit confirmed

[cpwigan]

Just as acaveat. Calders might be down on pace after a serious injury. However, players need time to recover. Pryce who Nobby loves is getting a full season.

Wigan RLFC once got shut of a talented young half back following a serious injury. Pundits said he had lost his pace. Given time, he got his pace back and came back to haunt us big time.

[exile in Tiger country]

I've alawys thought that Nobby was a good coach, but now I'm beginning to doubt it. He does seem to pick people he likes irrespective of how badly they play and ignore others despite them playing well when injuries force him to include them in the side.

I suppose he demonstrated this aspect when GB coach, when he never gave Sinfield a chance, so I really shouldn't be surprised now.

Calders will show how good he is wherever he goes, and if it is to Hull, they will have a great wing pairing, Calders on one Side and Raynor on the other.

[DaveO]

Well like has already been said we all knew this was coming.

I to be honest am not that fussed, its all well and good saying he will come back to bite us and maybe he will but the fact remains he hasn't done the job at Wigan, and before the tiraid of "well its down to service" comes in well that maybe so but wigan's strengths aren't the same as leeds and saints, we dont play massively expansive rugby anymore and that rightly or wrongly is fact therefore having calders is a luxury in the modern game we cant afford as im sure he didn't come for pitence.

When I see the above written, which it has been often about the Calderwood situation, I really find it frustrating.

Why? Because it is an acceptance of the fact "we dont play massively expansive rugby anymore ".

Why the hell not? What sort of RL do we play? Poor boring stuff for the most part.

Should we just accept it and ship out Stanton and Aincough now while we are at it?

In any case we actually have the option at the moment to play a different game with Carmont and Phelps in the centres.

So what does Noble do? Play Colbon outside Carmont and if he gets a game Calderwood outside Goulding and so on.

I have yet to see Calderwood played outside the clubs best centre and he certainly hasn't been played outside him consistently if it has happened at all.

Also re the pace thing i think he had lost a lost of pace and everytime he got the oppurtuntiy down the wing he always cut inside which is something your all critising colbon for.

He has been injured and players take time to recover from broken ankles. As CPW points out Pryce is getting an entire season to get well yet we expect Calderwood to be perfect and back to full pace in a matter of months after a broken ankle?

We did this with Hodgson who had a bad Achilles injury and while you could argue he wasn't that good anyway he certainly got his pace back the following season.

You cant just keep players because they have played well or could play well for other clubs, yes the bradford game he was brilliant and the leeds game however these are 2 games and much like DV i dont think he has done enough for us to earn that contract extention.

He was brilliant v Bradford because when we were down and out Nobby's game plan was chucked out of the window and we played a completely different game. He was given the ball in space and he could not be caught by anyone on the Bradford team! If you think he hasn't offered enough you are indeed totally ignoring the way the team plays, its tactics and how he has been used by Noble. When we play differently as we did in that game things happen.

He is a certain type of winger and his strengths are obvious. The fact we never play to those strengths is also obvious and THAT has been the problem.

And just some stats for ya:

if you disregard play-off games:

Calderwood scored 6 trys the whole of last season
Colbon (inferior player to most) 6 trys 16 games in to this season.

Same service for each player

Well I suppose you would have to ignore the tries he scored in the playoffs - the most intense games of the season to reinforce your argument.

Buf if you really think these stats say anything about the relative merits of these two players then I give up.

Dave

[standishcat]

Gutted about this one, really. I've always liked Calders! He's probably known for some time. Saw him drowning his sorrows in Darli Bar on Sunday night, was very tempted to go over and give him some support, not that it would've made much difference. But wanted him to know a lot of Wigan fans have always been right behind him this season despite Nobby inexplicably leaving him out of the team.

[Exiled Wiganer]

We don't know what he is being paid so don't know whether he represents value for money. We don't know whether he has lost his pace and what the medical people think about the prognosis for the future. Hodgson had an achilles, Pryce has a bad foot (and has much more to offer than pace), Calderwood broke his leg. I assume that none of us is a qualified doctor, so to say he'll get his pace back because it seemed to happen with someone with a different injury sounds ill judged to me.
That said, it is interesting that Hull FC want him - in part, I think that shows he still has class. (Higham went to Salford which says it all.)
I think he has been under and misused and wasted at Wigan through the squad around him and poor coaching.
Unless he's on a fortune, or will not be as fast as he was, then his leaving reflects badly on Noble. I am very disappointed about this, and think this is a poor decision.

[cpwigan]

What worrys me is if you look at say the Catalan game or previous games, our tries, our best play is when we play an expansive game. Take a look at the tries v Catalan and Trent throws some fantastic passes out. Indeed, although leading up to it was comical, Joel Tomkins tthrows a cracking pass to Phelps for his try. Our strength is a stand off with the best passing game in SL, tall rangy skillful second rowers and some decent outside backs such as Carmont/Richards.

Yet what does Nobby say oh we tried to go wide too much, we need to go up the middle and play one man rugby for a few yards gained. My contention is this, all too often we do what Nobby wants at the start of games and get battered and fall behind. Trent and co then take it upon themselves to play expansive rugby and we do better.

Nobby is so limited and blinkered. Yes, the textbooks say go forward then go wide BUT Queensland did that in Origin 1 and got beat. Origin 2 they scored 50/60 yarders and hammered NSW by playing to their strengths and often passing wide early. Play to your strengths.

What Nobby should be doing is sorting the defence because at the moment any team running a second man play kills us.

[butt monkey]

It was a well known fact that BN never rated him whilst he was "running in trys for fun at Leeds" as GB coach. This was one of the questions posed by fans after his arrival at the JJB.

It is obvious (for whatever reason), those opinions have not changed.

I don't accept that he has "lost pace". It is just that Wigan do not create space for him to utilise (yet would this be different if Stanton/Ainscough played?). He is regularly expected when he plays 1st team (like Colbon) to make hard yards down the middle to help the forwards out. This was not his "style" of play.

Sad to see him go, yet I can see the "cheaper option" of the likes of Stanton and Ainscough playing wing next season, with the money saved from Calderwoods wage (no matter how much), used elsewhere, in what BN would consider more important positions to address.

[DaveO]

We don't know what he is being paid so don't know whether he represents value for money. We don't know whether he has lost his pace and what the medical people think about the prognosis for the future. Hodgson had an achilles, Pryce has a bad foot (and has much more to offer than pace), Calderwood broke his leg. I assume that none of us is a qualified doctor, so to say he'll get his pace back because it seemed to happen with someone with a different injury sounds ill judged to me.

But so is saying he won't get it back which is an argument used to justify his exit.

We don't know one way or the other but I certainly do not think anyone is qualified to say he has lost his pace. He has hardly played any games for people to judge.

That said, it is interesting that Hull FC want him - in part, I think that shows he still has class. (Higham went to Salford which says it all.)
I think he has been under and misused and wasted at Wigan through the squad around him and poor coaching.
Unless he's on a fortune, or will not be as fast as he was, then his leaving reflects badly on Noble. I am very disappointed about this, and think this is a poor decision.

I do as well because when you think about it we signed from Leeds one of the top try scoring wingers in the game and since he has been here the tries dried up. I don't think it is a coincidence because for all his legendary status Brett Dallas was in a very similar situation to Calders in the last few years of his Wigan career.

He only scored 10 tries in 2006 and I think this shows what sort of poor service we give to our wingers and have done for some time.

Dave

[cpwigan]

What annoys is that players like Ainscough are being set up to fail. He spends far too much time in Academy RL when he should be at least playing reserves. Defensive faults show up and recently he was stripped of the ball up to half a dozen times due to the way he carries the ball. He has a lot of positives but for me he had those when he came as a 16 year old. The negatives which we should be coaching out of him still remain and that is wrong.

If Calderwood is not big enough for Noble then what chance Stanton or Ainscough?

[butt monkey]

If Calderwood is not big enough for Noble then what chance Stanton or Ainscough?

I wouldn't think "size" or lack of, would be the simple argument. Sometimes smaller, nippy players make more yardage from dummy half and are also more prone to "being awarded" penalties for unintentional high shots. That might be another facet that BN would/could look at.