stevocod posted:
I can't believe people can blame Richards alone for this bad run we've been in and for the errors he's made
I'm not sure if people have been. I think he's been generally not as good as expected all season, but he's not really any different to most of the other 35 in that respect. I've only really got complaints about him on Sunday, if he had not made some bad blunders then the result might have been a lot more comfortable. Whilst every player makes mistakes, he made a few absolute shockers and I think we should be expecting better from a play of his reputation. Had it been just one, then I'd have let him off, but he had an all-round shocking game.
He's certainly not solely to blame for this season's ills, but his mistakes could have been very costly on Sunday. Since we were all prepared to criticise Desi Williams, a kid who had barely broken into the firs team, a couple of years back for similar mistakes, I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect better from a recognised experienced player when he makes the same mistakes.
"You rescue me, you are my faith, my hope, my liberty.
And when there's darkness all around, you shine bright for me, you are a guiding light to me....
You are a Tower of Strength to me" - Wayne Hussey, The Mission.
Shepherd's Bush Empire - 27/Feb/08 - 1/Mar/08
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I am not one to quickly critisize younger players and thought Colbon deserved a longer run in the side last year. My main point is not just he is not the only one to blame. Others including Dallas have not had the best of seasons and worse than Richards overall, but noone talks of Calders replacing him. Solely because of his past reputation he is being overlooked in similar aspects. If we were going to drop players for one bad game like last week Richards, why not the week before with Ashton? The answer obviously is because we all make mistakes, be it many from alot of players this year. But can you honestly say that one bad game merits him being replaced?
stevocod posted:
But can you honestly say that one bad game merits him being replaced?
No, but I've not been terribly impressed with him all season to be honest, not just last Sunday. But I've said the same about Calderwood and Dallas, and dropping them all would leave us somewhat short of wingers! All three need to do better to earn much praise from me. And I'm a bit baffled by people claiming Richards has been one of the best players this year, although I'm struggling to find any candidates apart from Ashton who has done an excellent job of stepping up to the first team from the backup role he would have expected to have for most of this year.
"You rescue me, you are my faith, my hope, my liberty.
And when there's darkness all around, you shine bright for me, you are a guiding light to me....
You are a Tower of Strength to me" - Wayne Hussey, The Mission.
Shepherd's Bush Empire - 27/Feb/08 - 1/Mar/08
[hr]
stevocod posted:
But can you honestly say that one bad game merits him being replaced?
No, but I've not been terribly impressed with him all season to be honest, not just last Sunday. But I've said the same about Calderwood and Dallas, and dropping them all would leave us somewhat short of wingers! All three need to do better to earn much praise from me. And I'm a bit baffled by people claiming Richards has been one of the best players this year, although I'm struggling to find any candidates apart from Ashton who has done an excellent job of stepping up to the first team from the backup role he would have expected to have for most of this year.
I agree with you there but Richards and Dallas have played alot more than Calderwood and on the basis of the season so far, i would personally drop Dallas and that is not like me because i think he's been great for us while he's been at the club, but certainly been the worst of the two.
stevocod posted:
But can you honestly say that one bad game merits him being replaced?
No, but I've not been terribly impressed with him all season to be honest, not just last Sunday. But I've said the same about Calderwood and Dallas, and dropping them all would leave us somewhat short of wingers! All three need to do better to earn much praise from me. And I'm a bit baffled by people claiming Richards has been one of the best players this year, although I'm struggling to find any candidates apart from Ashton who has done an excellent job of stepping up to the first team from the backup role he would have expected to have for most of this year.
I agree with you there but Richards and Dallas have played alot more than Calderwood and on the basis of the season so far, i would personally drop Dallas and that is not like me because i think he's been great for us while he's been at the club, but certainly been the worst of the two.
I guess there's something we can agree on! Calderwood started badly but he was massively improved before his injury, particularly in defence where he had been a real liability before. Although I've got a bit of sympathy with Dallas, he's not had anything to chase onto all season thanks to unimaginative halves and poor centres. But perhaps he needs to go looking for the ball a bit if it's not going to come to him any other way, and he's not shown much of that this year.
"You rescue me, you are my faith, my hope, my liberty.
And when there's darkness all around, you shine bright for me, you are a guiding light to me....
You are a Tower of Strength to me" - Wayne Hussey, The Mission.
Shepherd's Bush Empire - 27/Feb/08 - 1/Mar/08
[hr]
Fraggle posted:
No, but I've not been terribly impressed with him all season to be honest, not just last Sunday. But I've said the same about Calderwood and Dallas, and dropping them all would leave us somewhat short of wingers! All three need to do better to earn much praise from me. And I'm a bit baffled by people claiming Richards has been one of the best players this year, although I'm struggling to find any candidates apart from Ashton who has done an excellent job of stepping up to the first team from the backup role he would have expected to have for most of this year.
I agree with you there but Richards and Dallas have played alot more than Calderwood and on the basis of the season so far, i would personally drop Dallas and that is not like me because i think he's been great for us while he's been at the club, but certainly been the worst of the two.
I guess there's something we can agree on! Calderwood started badly but he was massively improved before his injury, particularly in defence where he had been a real liability before. Although I've got a bit of sympathy with Dallas, he's not had anything to chase onto all season thanks to unimaginative halves and poor centres. But perhaps he needs to go looking for the ball a bit if it's not going to come to him any other way, and he's not shown much of that this year.
You could say that about both wingers and this is why given the tries Richards has scored so far, it's pretty amazing seeing as the centres haven't created alot for them
either. Last season started with a fair few tries for Dallas off Vaeliki's passes out of the tackle to put him in the corner. Now i'm not Dv's biggest fan and i don't even think he should be at Wigan, but at least it was a centre/wing combination that worked at the time.
I'm not going to critisise Gleeson or Goulding because they are both up and coming youngsters and will improve in time i'm sure, but DV and Mcavoy need to pull their socks up and commit more opposition defenses to create the space out wide for Dallas/Richards/Calderwood.
stevocod posted:
Last season started with a fair few tries for Dallas off Vaeliki's passes out of the tackle to put him in the corner. Now i'm not Dv's biggest fan and i don't even think he should be at Wigan, but at least it was a centre/wing combination that worked at the time.
About two tries in three games resulted from Vaealiki creating space for Dallas and Dallas scoring in the corner. It was very short lived and Vaealiki has never really shown any of the quality that he showed before tearing his achilles tendon.
You are defending Richards saying he has only played one bad game when infact there have been many games where his positioning has been questionable, his tackling suspect and his go forward sluggish. Dallas on the other hand had one poor game against Leeds and whilst hasn't done an awful lot going forward, probably through lack of supply (same goes for Richards) he has been solid in defence and has come up with try saving tackles on quite a few occassions.
For me, if Calderwood is looking good in training and after a first team place Richards would be the first to go. Whilst Dallas is aging and not the player he was two seasons ago, he is much more dependable.
Richards has made errors in defense and so has Dallas. Dallas has been much more dependable as you say but in previous seasons and not this one.
Considering our attack is the second worse in the league, worst being Quins, we need out top tryscorer out there and you know what they say attack is the best form of defense and with the go forward that Fielden will give us, imo Richards has been our best attacking option this season.
