Firestarter wrote:I think to be fair,the management should have looked at how weak we were in the centres,pre season.
I said the same thing.
I also said it was madness to go with three centres when one was long term injured because if one of the two fit players was out, we were in a pickle.
You don't need to be an SL coach to realise that was a possibility and look what has happened.
Add that that Sarge has forgotten how to tackle if he ever knew and despite his character, Gelling is at best inconsistent I think my reservations pre-season about the centres are proving to be true.
Last week showed us how unfit he was at best he should have been bench fodder not a starter made no sense whatsoever t me i said it last week and his poor performance 7 days prior didnt fill me with confidence when i saw his name on the team sheet.
Something has to be done about sorting reserves fixtures out again,surely while there would be a cost involved it would benefit all concerned not just us very short sighted move by all concerned
shaunedwardsfanclub wrote:
Because Wane chose to play him! Why is Joel not playing in the pack, where he is more effective? The odd injury shouldn't mean that you disrupt your team by selecting players out of position.
Name a Centre of experience in the squad to fill the position when Gelling and Thornley are out injured and Sarginson is not playing as well as last season. The only other player with experience, Charnley is on the Wing due to injury of Manfredi.
And with O'Loughlin clearly not up to fitness and form, Bateman is needed like you say, at Loose Forward.
Taking Tomkins away from Centre will further weaken the team in the three quarters while we have sufficient back row forwards and it is only one positional change in the circumstances stated.
Taking Tomkins out of the pack severely weakens our game. We are Wigan, we should have ample cover for the three quarters, given that we have not means that our recruitment has been inadequate. We knew at the start of the season that Thornley would miss a large proportion of the games and yet we made no provision if more injuries occurred - that in my book is bad planning. It looks as though we may be trying to rectify that position by signing a utility player for next term!
By the way, we have thrown plenty of inexperienced players into the team over the last two or three years so why not one more? We need to stick with a winning team and replace like for like when injuries occur.
Finally, it did us no good on Friday night so I don't understand your point.
Neither do I understand yours as like Dave O has said, we are weak in the Centres, with two injured, one not playing well as normal and the only other with just a limited bit of experience at first team level is untried in our first team and hardly the right time to blood him in a Cup Tie, especially when it is on a ground where we always seemed to struggle against a decent team like Hull KR and local rivals Leigh.
Hence the selection of Tomkins at Centre.
p.s. A certain Bill Ashurst used to do likewise in emergency!
Wigan Watcher wrote:Does anyone have any ideas. He was clearly not fit out of touch and a liability at times.... Surely we have enough fit players in the squad. For me Bateman should have played at 13.
Time to go gracefully now.
= phild should he be doing a sir kev move now he has reached his sell by date?