No Feka

[gpartin]

Unless Feka can match Fui Fui in terms of duration of play and impact I doubt he will prosper uder an Australian coach. Look at Melbourne, they never favoured impact players like Feka. If you carry such a player on your bench and somebody to cover Piggy then suddenly your bench looks weaker.

Is it fair to have a bench spot "wasted" just to cover for Riddell?

No drop the idle wart.

[highland convert]

To be fair as a Prop I worked on 15.5 to 16 stone. Big for my agegroup. Northern Ireland intensive training dropped me to 13.5. It crippled me. At 16 stone it is mass and inertia. At 13.5 it is strenth alone. Try knocking a nail in with a 12oz hammer in the same number of blows as a 16 oz hammer. To do so your arm has to expend far more energy and the impact on the muscles are far greater. To achieve what Feka did last year would take 20% more energy. Less effective and more taxing on the muscles. Time will correct it,
Jim

[exile in Tiger country]

To be fair as a Prop I worked on 15.5 to 16 stone. Big for my agegroup. Northern Ireland intensive training dropped me to 13.5. It crippled me. At 16 stone it is mass and inertia. At 13.5 it is strenth alone. Try knocking a nail in with a 12oz hammer in the same number of blows as a 16 oz hammer. To do so your arm has to expend far more energy and the impact on the muscles are far greater. To achieve what Feka did last year would take 20% more energy. Less effective and more taxing on the muscles. Time will correct it,
Jim

Excellent analogy.
I hadn't thought of it like that.

[Matthew]

Unless Feka can match Fui Fui in terms of duration of play and impact I doubt he will prosper uder an Australian coach. Look at Melbourne, they never favoured impact players like Feka. If you carry such a player on your bench and somebody to cover Piggy then suddenly your bench looks weaker.

Riddell was more of a liability on Friday night than Feka.

If MM is consistent, then as soon as Mickey Mac is anything like match fit; then Riddell will be keeping Feka company in the reserves

[cpwigan]

Unless Feka can match Fui Fui in terms of duration of play and impact I doubt he will prosper uder an Australian coach. Look at Melbourne, they never favoured impact players like Feka. If you carry such a player on your bench and somebody to cover Piggy then suddenly your bench looks weaker.

Is it fair to have a bench spot "wasted" just to cover for Riddell?

Not really but there is no way Piggy can do the 80 and it is games v Bradford where it really costs us having such a fixed bench. Mossop is very important simply because he can cover so many forward positions. I would actually when Mickey Mac was injured have been tempted to play Farrell as back up 9 because he covers so many positions.

Whether, Piggy is better / worse than Mickey Mac is for others to decide but certainly if Mickey Mac can play the full 80 that is a big advantage.

[cpwigan]

Unless Feka can match Fui Fui in terms of duration of play and impact I doubt he will prosper uder an Australian coach. Look at Melbourne, they never favoured impact players like Feka. If you carry such a player on your bench and somebody to cover Piggy then suddenly your bench looks weaker.

Riddell was more of a liability on Friday night than Feka.

If MM is consistent, then as soon as Mickey Mac is anything like match fit; then Riddell will be keeping Feka company in the reserves

I agree. He has been decent this season but his antics v his best mate were totally unprofessional and I been his team mate he would have been given a very unpleasant (non sexual )time in the changing rooms.

[ancientnloyal]

Leuluai is young enough and fit enough to play hooker for 80 minutes. Christ, Martin Dermott did it week in week out for years at the highest level! the hooker can take a rest in a way by simply playing the ball instead of dummy runs to get breath back. An extra hooker is wasting a spot. Would rather have another forward on the bench.

[cpwigan]

Not sure why but Tommy at 9 has not really worked this season

[gpartin]

I feel a bit sorry for Feka either by the way he's being asked to play or by trying to impress he's wasting far too much energy. Just watched Wire V Wigan again keeping an eye on Feka and Solomona as a comparison. When Feka comes on he looks massively committed in defence and often goes in as 3rd man in a tackle and stays as marker (this season he has made 17 marker tackles which considering the time he is on the field is phenomenal). 90% of the time he goes in as third man the tackle is just about complete and it achieves nothing. He also, as I have mentioned before, is used as a dummy runner far too many times when he is running from deep, again wasting energy. Dummy runners will draw a man or two by their very nature not because of the size of the player so it is pointless in my opinion using him in this way. Feka also drives the ball in from within the line with no momentum and because of his size he is usually tackled by 3 or 4 men and makes no ground at all and does little to take anything out of the defence. The combination of these things means Feka's legs quickly tire and he becomes useless in attack.

Now looking at Solomona, nearly everytime he runs from deep he is given the ball, very effective near the line as we saw in the Wigan game. He is very rarely used as a dummy runner. When he is part of the line of attack without any momentum he either passes the ball along the line or tries to offload in the tackle (with varying success, I may add). If he does go in as third man he may do this twice in a row but then strolls back into the line of defence and doesn't get involved again at least until the next set of six giving him valuable time to get his breath back. The tackles he does make take more out of the attack than they do out of him because he isn't running around like a blue a+sed fly all the time. The result is he gets more game time and is able come back on later in the game when the defence is tired, the time where Feka usually isn't on the field.

Given the amount of time Feka plays he gets through a lot of work in defence far too much imo. Before watching this I didn't look at the stats but they seem to back up my ideas pretty well:

Feka Solomona
Tries 0 2
Metres 230 325
Carries 30 44
Tackles 52 47
Marker T's 17 9
Offloads 2 11
Busts 6 5
Clean Brks 0 1

Some of these stats for Feka look good considering the amount of time he is on the pitch but the carries he makes are nowhere near as effective as they should be.

[the-Bowtun-Warrior]

good.
he is over-rated by many.

and imo not good enough.
- a liability in defence
- doesn't stay on long enough
-doesn't make half the yards he should for a 'big man'


far better without him. Preccy and O'caz with Fielden + Coley. i'd even play mossop at prop before Feka