the pieman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 20, 2022 9:35 am
i'd like to see us put leeds to the sword and shut the south stand down early on
i know they are a little depleted, but seemed to have turned a bit of a corner under Smith, so its a chance for us to lay a bit of a marker. Was over in Leeds yesterday and chatting to one of my daughters friends, and he is confident of a Leeds victory (poor lad )
Looks like Lewis had a better night than my daughter. He even got her tickets in the South stand, which she hated
DaveO wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 10:25 pm
Well that was utter garbage. No centres and no idea in defence.
As to Isa and Bibby, time to look for alternatives. How long before Thornley is fit? He can’t be any worse than those two.
DaveO, I think that Peet said in one of his bits on Wigantv that Thornleys injury was worse than they thought so that doesn't sound as if he will be coming back anytime soon but no one can be thinking that Thornley at centre will improve our defence surely?
Regarder une fille en bikini, c'est comme avoir un revolver chargé sur sa table:
Il n'y a rien de mal a ça mais il est difficile de penser à autre chose.
Only got in very late to watch it - and I rather wish I hadn't!
Struggling to think of anyone who had a good game but Cooper will be better in the future (hard for him to be worse). What was concerning was that the team seemed to be just waiting for some Field and French magic and Leeds had that covered most of the evening. All the passing was poor but Powell's stood out as being bad when he had tine to make a proper pass without being rushed. Dwyer just loved those big holes at the PTB that were left as well.
KPP had a stinker in defence (as did most but he stood out) but the most depressing thing was seeing the forwards revert to last season's style. Just batter your way down the middle - die with the ball and when five yards from the line find there is no creative spark and the attack collapses.
The referee was certainly appalling but I doubt it made a massive difference. 7 tries to 2 is pretty conclusive.
I couldn't attend or watch yesterday, I've literally just watched the highlights on SkySports.
I obviously cant be too critical, but for those who watched fully and posted concerns on the defence inside our 10m, that looked concerning as did Mustapha's brush off of Cooper, does it appear its too soon for him, I seen others posted this?
I don't think Cooper was playing until Mago came down with illness. I would get giving him a rest anyway but he's been pretty solid last few games more minutes and not just looking for a flash offload. For me it looked an attitude thing last night, we didn't play with any intensity and looked to play tick and pass rugby without winning the right down the middle to do so. We didn't bust them in the middle to create space out wide so it was always covered numbers wide. That's the issue in those games where teams match our intensity we struggle, Field running wide is our major weapon along with Bev's magic. I can't think of many times our centres out wide and r hooker down the middle have done anything to create space on their own until we do that we will always struggle to dominate in big games we need threat? It will also create more room for Batty and Faz who are two of the best edge line runners.
More of a concern though is the rush for no need from our centres out of the line in D, that's always exposed when under pressure near our 10. It cost us 24 points last night and took us away from the way we needed to play, in that it was catch up rugby because of it. Hallsall should get a chance now you would think but I'm imagining the coaches will give the team that played a chance to fix things. I would like us to do something different with the center position but can't see it, Halsall KPP or even French. I'm not sure if Peet saying Thornley is worse than expected will see him back at a point but again I'm not sure that's an answer to the issue he is if fit a big fast unit Wire away showed what he could and what we should be doing or what we need to get to, his pass to French in the final another example of just simple good centre play.
Not a panic but with 5 or so of the players last night in your 17 those games are always a possibility Especially when two or three of them are first picks most weeks. I think you can get away with one or two max before we get that kind of thing.
As I keep saying our forwards are not good enough. I'm repeating myself when I say when we come up against a determined pack who play with aggression we crumble at worst or manage to hang on at best. We never dominate an opposing pack.
There lies the difference between Wigan and snakes.
The snakes can defend we can't at the moment Even when we had Waneball we where always in games because we could.It must be a priority to pickup two world class centres and fowards that don't get dominated
You can’t become a top team playing second rowers in the centre, look at our past teams with carmont, Goulding, sarginson, gilly all centres.
Isa can’t keep playing there, Halsall needs to start playing or he needs to go one.
If I was him I’d be unhappy that 34 year old second rower was ahead of me, I’d rather leave
I was as disappointed as anybody last night but I think it'll go down as one of those performance that was so poor across the board it's best to just forget it and move on. Such performances can be a result of poor preparation, attitude, over-confidence, stress or other factors but sometimes the whole team just has a bad one and the harder they try the worse it gets. We've only played that badly twice this season and, although that's two times too many, if it doesn't happen again we'll all forgive them. It all makes the next game more interesting than it would have been so roll on Thursday.
