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i honestly cant believe some of the things that are being posted on here.

first off, i thought ainscough defence under the high bomb was great. sure the kicks that were coming his way were not great, but he delt with them. this part of his game was not even comparable with him last season he had improved that much. i think that shows quite a bit of a rugby brain. after all, you can only learn from your mistakes.

following on, if TM and the cas coaching staff are even slightly decent, they will be working with him about diving on the ball rather than taking an air shot, or even trying to kick it. but there is no way on earth that ainscough is the only player who has ever kicked the ball out. i have seen plenty of so called "experienced" players do it and miss.

last season i didnt think SA should get back into our team after he had been dropped. but now i can see that happening, especially if he comes back and spends a bit longer with MM. he has been training with us since the start of the season and his kick defence is already way better than last season.

if you ask me the guy has a pretty great rugby brain, and a good set of skills to go with that. it was the lads first game for the club. im not sure exactly how many training sessions he had with them, so you cant really expect him to gel with the rest of the team that well, in both attack and defence, and i think he will get better in both as he spends more time there. grea first game for shaun, a MOTM preformance.

Jimlav wrote:i honestly cant believe some of the things that are being posted on here.

first off, i thought ainscough defence under the high bomb was great. sure the kicks that were coming his way were not great, but he delt with them. this part of his game was not even comparable with him last season he had improved that much. i think that shows quite a bit of a rugby brain. after all, you can only learn from your mistakes.

following on, if TM and the cas coaching staff are even slightly decent, they will be working with him about diving on the ball rather than taking an air shot, or even trying to kick it. but there is no way on earth that ainscough is the only player who has ever kicked the ball out. i have seen plenty of so called "experienced" players do it and miss.

last season i didnt think SA should get back into our team after he had been dropped. but now i can see that happening, especially if he comes back and spends a bit longer with MM. he has been training with us since the start of the season and his kick defence is already way better than last season.

if you ask me the guy has a pretty great rugby brain, and a good set of skills to go with that. it was the lads first game for the club. im not sure exactly how many training sessions he had with them, so you cant really expect him to gel with the rest of the team that well, in both attack and defence, and i think he will get better in both as he spends more time there. grea first game for shaun, a MOTM preformance.

Totally agree. Once mistake and out come the stock phrases about him doing this all the time. One of those tries he scored for Cas required tremendous footwork and he was in the right place for the other two (that's his job).

He goes from NL1 to a SL side who aren't knocking seven bells out of anyone (unlike us) and scores a hat trick on his debut and we get posts highlighting one error in defence as if the rest of the Wigan team are perfect.

Last season he and Phepls averaged roughly the same number of errors per game at just over 1 but Phelps missed nearly twice as many tackles on average but Phelps does not get labelled as someone who consistently makes defensive mistakes and he made some howlers last year including waiting for the ball to go dead only for a Wakey player to ground it between his legs. This isn't s dig at Phelps but should put Ainscough's error rate in perspective. It is nothing out of the ordinary and the stats prove he is not some sort of defensive liability.

Dave

Some of us, like myself and Straw have seen in excess of a hundred games that Shaun Ainscough has played in and that has been over what 4 years, maybe 5. The same mistakes happen again and again. Warrington were desparate that we would pick Ainsy v them this season. They planned to attack him non stop with kicks. Thankfully Madge opted for a better selection and Wire's plan was blown out the water. If coaches are planning to make somebody their key to victory then it tells you something because like myself and others they have seen it happen far too many times not to ask why Ainsy has not rectified his weakness that has been there for years.

I knew some people would respond as they did hence I posted a question, General RL - which is more important. Everybody gave the correct and sensible response yet what they said does nt apply to Ainsy.

cherry.pie wrote:Going off the things that have been said about Maguire and his coaching style so far, it would seem to me that whilst he would have been impressed with Ainscough in attack, and that he coped catching the high balls, he would no doubt be incredibly disappointed at Ainscough's failure to deal with the grubber kick through.

Well he will be "incredibly" disappointed with other Wigan players at times this season then because they will all make errors but whether they score at hat trick at the other end in the same game remains to be seen. Ainscough is 20 and was playing his first game for new team and plenty of more experienced players than him have been beaten by a grubber kick.

As long as Ainscough keeps playing Super League week in week out he will improve, and it's better for the club to be observing him at the moment rather than him playing first team, because there is still the question mark about his defence, and as it stands we aren't struggling in attack.

There are question marks over Gouldings defence (he shoots out the line far too readily for example) but it's not highlighted with him to the same extent. What has Ainscough done to be under such a microscope compared to other players? He is simply not the defensive liability this constant dissection of every mistake implies he is.

quote]The big test is how he gets on next week. Hull KR may have kicked to him, but he wasn't necessarily tested. Obviously people are praising him for dealing with the high balls, but that's not outstanding, it's ordinary basic skills which he's hopefully now got covered.[/quote]

How confident are you of Phelps under a high ball? Or even Roberts?

His big weakness is the cross field kicks where he can get easily outjumped. KR never did that, because they had Ben Cockayne on that wing who is no more than an inch taller than Ainscough if that.

And this is where your centres come in.

The big test is against Hull FC. Many players are outstanding on debut because its a big occasion, but he's got to be consistent, and improve his defence.
I think if Agar has any sense, he will make sure Craig Hall is down their left hand side on the last tackle to receive some cross field kicks. At 6 foot 4 he would be a real threat to Ainscough, more so than Tom Briscoe, although even he is a good 4 inches taller than Ainscough.

And if they do that and Cas have a tall centre it becomes his job to help his winger out. It's also up to the team not just the winger to defend cross field kicks. Any team playing us at the moment knows we will use that tactic to kick to Richards. If every time we do it he scores because he's just about the tallest winger in the league then the game becomes boring but more to the point the rest of the team need to do things like pressure the kicker so this is a difficult option to take.

It's a team game and the same way we protect Sam Tomkins when we defend any decent side will be aware Ainscough isn't the tallest and will adjust accordingly.

Or has he no future because he is 5 foot 8 tall?

Dave

His height makes ity harder but small men with great leaping ability have been excellent in the air. Hampo was not that big. In the air or on the ground Shaun Ainscough has struggled to deal with kicks for 4 seasons + I think it is fair to say that is an issue.

cpwigan wrote: Some of us, like myself and Straw have seen in excess of a hundred games that Shaun Ainscough has played in and that has been over what 4 years, maybe 5. The same mistakes happen again and again. Warrington were desparate that we would pick Ainsy v them this season. They planned to attack him non stop with kicks. Thankfully Madge opted for a better selection and Wire's plan was blown out the water. If coaches are planning to make somebody their key to victory then it tells you something because like myself and others they have seen it happen far too many times not to ask why Ainsy has not rectified his weakness that has been there for years.

I knew some people would respond as they did hence I posted a question, General RL - which is more important. Everybody gave the correct and sensible response yet what they said does nt apply to Ainsy.

If he was as consistently error prone as you claim he would have never made it to the first team and been given a first team contract. No one would want him on loan and he'd be long gone already.

He'd have not got picked for the England Under 17 squad as a junior (scoring three tries v the Australian Institute of sport). Instead he was the outstanding player for that game.

He would not have been wanted by Widnes, nor Cas and would not have had the opportunity to score 24 tries in SL in a very short senior career. Nor would he have had his Wigan contract extended.

Add to that his error rate is SL simply is not as you describe there is only one sensible conclusion to come to and that is for some reason you are over stating the case.

I still haven't worked out what that reason is but I am sure it will come out sooner or later.

Dave

Dave O, no personal reason I like those that have seen him the most have witnessed the mistakes for a player who was kept in the junior academy for longer than the norm and he still made the same mistakes. You can list all the things you want and I could offer Thomas Coyle, James Coyle, Sean Gleeson etc as having all the same lists and no longer playing for Wigan RLFC. Daryl Goulding has a similar list, perhaps even better so the production of such lists is fairly pointless as you would not use it to justify Goulding for example.

Dave I think you have 1 player you back come what may, Higham and now Ainscough. Ainsy may come back and do very well but at this moment in time Madge is reinforcing the view of Noble and Wane knows Ainscough far better than any other coach.