Positives & Negatives: 28-16

[ajsefc]

I completely agree with God - the one in this forum that is - Mathers is top class when fit, it may take until 6/7 games in till we se it because he's not played much rugby for 18 months.
He's the type of charachter we want in that dressing room. Young, eager to make up for lost time, bags of ability and most important a huge desire to play for wigan

[wigangurl1991]

turf posted:
I thought Colbon did well both in attack and defense personally.

same ere !!!

[wigangurl1991]

turf posted:
I thought Colbon did well both in attack and defense personally.

same ere !!!

[the-Bowtun-Warrior]

God posted:

the-Bowtun-Warr ior posted:

God posted:
Mathers will improove FACT his defense will improove FACT.

dont enforce it or anything :doz:

Why because you know im right.

no, because its a forum and everyone has an opinion....

regardless of who uses caps locks and who doesn't

[ChrisA]

I'm not saying he won't improve, obviously he will. But he will never be as dependable as Rads, not in a million years.

There aren't any fullbacks in the league who I would class as in the same bracket as him. He really was as safe as a row of houses, maybe we've been spoiled having him as our number 1 for so long.

[ancientnloyal]

cpwigan posted:
I do not think you can judge Mathers 1 v 1 until he becomes fully fit. Ideally, a fullback needs to be able to show the ball carrier the side he wants him to take, ideally the outside and then tackle him. I doubt Mathers has enough confidence in himself to do so yet. Accordingly he is having to stand straight on to the ball carrier.

I was just pointing out two clear situations this season where its 1v1 and lost the battle. Of course he isnt match fit a la Leeds form... With time he will improve, I dont know about 'FACT', we will see. He's young and at the moment like ChrisA mentioned, is likenened to ashton at the moment.

Of course he will improve match by match. He has quality.

And he isnt Radlinski

[DaveO]

cpwigan posted:
Honestly people the days of wingers stood on the halfway line and a perfectly diagonal attack line when the POTB is on the opposition line are long gone.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. As an example of what was wrong with Wigan's attacking line last night there was one pass in the second half to O'Carroll and he was dead in line with the player who passed it too him and O'Carroll was stood still when he took the ball.

Most of the other players were in line with O'Carroll as well so there was nothing on at all.

You also saw last night on the few times Cas did mount an attack they had a diagonal attacking line with players taking the ball running, not stood still.

I don't think anyone is suggesting Wigan string out the line as you say but rather standing totally flat isn't going to get us very far.

Dave

[DaveO]

ancientnloyal posted:
He's young and at the moment like ChrisA mentioned, is likenened to ashton at the moment.

At the moment I think you are right. The same thought went through my mind on Friday. Doesn't mean he won't improve the defence aspect of his game saying he looks a similar player to Ashton right now.

Dave

[phibes]

So, the gist of this is Mathers' defence will definitely improve (not a huge claim based on what we've seen so far) and on the other side of the debate we have the view that he might improve, but his one-on-one will never be as good as Radlinksi (not a massive claim either).

You're both right

[butt monkey]

My thoughts on Mathers - he was more of an attacking full-back at Leeds, not to say his defence was poor though! I was pleased with his signing and believe that his timing is out, more than he cannot tackle.

Positives, Wigan win a poor match, Feka - good yards as usual, Coley - good worker if poor handling near Castleford's line, no apparent new injuries, Hock looks "up for it" this season.


Negatives, too many unforced errors, slack defending on Wigan's right-hand side, Higham - who's offloads virtually never found a team-mate and his dummy-half passes, also were at times poor, playing an unfit Lockers.