is it just me or does anybody eles ask them selfs why we have him out on the wing as he never in postion perfect example to night as he draged him self into the play where he was nt needed

Good attacking play though.

Crookes impressed me, but does need more work.

His defence is shocking. Weird for a full back.

For Wigans first try, their was no need to be so far in off the wing!

He was practically hold Nero's hand!

JC impressed me so I would personally go for Crookes and Ricky on the wings when fit!

Nero and Reardon have not gelled as a wing and centre partnership imo. might be an idea to maybe shake things up down that left hand side

I have not been impressed with Nero at all this season.

Have you ever been impressed with Nero in a Bulls shirt?

A lot better player when he played for Fartown!

really? I thought he looked out of his depth tbh. hope he'll come good but tonight wasnt his best game imo

1st have he wasn't good, but he handled the pressure okay and put in his share of go forward. It must be hard being a teenager on your 4th or 5th SL game to come up against Pat Richards on your opposite side. I have high hopes for Crookes.

Schoolboyed Paaaaaat for the crucial pen.

Just watched the second half replay (bugger the first half...

) As I felt at the game, Crookes did rather well I thought.

He did, i thought he ran the ball strongly and will only get better imo.

I don't think Crookes had a great game to be honest. He was very hit and miss, but I suppose you need to expect that from a young lad. There were a couple of times (and Richards' try was the main one) where I just didn't think it was good enough. He showed promise at other times though, so I wouldn't write him off purely based on that. I think people who thought he had a very good game and should keep his place though probably had some rose tints on (or were only watching the second half

).

I think Reardon would be fine on the wing if he just kept his concentration. It seems to me that his mind wanders occasionally and he gets caught out of position, which is undoubtedly the reason for Goulding's try.

I thought Nero had his best game so far this season. Orford seems to be able to give him that crash ball that he used to do so well at the Giants

after watching replay last night I still think Crookes was poor in first half but to his credit he did improve in 2nd half and seemed to gain confidence. Suppose thing to remember is the lad was playing out of his normal position so a few mistakes are to be expected. Don't know whats going on with reardon. After looking on fire in pre-season he seems to be going through a bit of a poor spell.

Reardon was at fault for wigans first try, but he has not played for over 12 months prior to this campaign & he is not a winger. He played right wing for the bulls for a short time in his first spell, but made his name at full back & at wire his best performances were at fb. He played centre at west bowling and in his junior days at odsal, so he's not a natural winger & i for one would rather se him at centre or fb.

Agree with all that. Crookes did have a difficult job marking Richards and his inexperience was to blame for the try. That said he never gave up and added a bit of zip when he took the ball up.

Don't you think he should be given a run of a few games in the first time and allowed a real chance to show whether he is going to be good enough to be a super league winger?

In my opinion, if Ricky isn't 100% fit next week,I'd throw JC into the first team again!

Well there's no sense rushing Sheriffe back if he's not 100%
Hamstring injuries can be tricky and if he's not right he could put himself out for a lot longer

I'm not absolving Reardon from blame but I think some of tries conceded on his wing this season have been team failings. We have been playing a very narrow defense, too narrow at times. On a few occasions he's been isolated marking 2 or 3 players with Nero being 20m further infield.

I would agree with that, however on Friday he was nowhere! Nero had Gleeson covered and Orford was sliding across as well. Reardon certainly needs to work on this aspect of his game whilst on the wing.

I still think we need to add to the squad to have a serious chance of a top 4 finish this year. I'd like to see us bring in a winger and perhaps consider moving Reardon into centre where he can get more chances with the ball. He is great at stepping and making a half break so I am sure he could do well at centre.

I sound like a broken record but I still feel we're light in the pack and it will cost us eventually this year. We'll need Sculthorpe to stay fit and come back into the side in good shape. However I just hope he doesn't bring his ill discipline side of his game into the side. We are conceding a lot less penalties this year so far. I'd love to see a Burgess break through and add some real size to our pack, not sure how realistic that is for this year though.

If Sheriffe isn't fit, then yeah he should get in (assuming Platt isn't back too). What I was referring to was suggestions that he should keep his place even if Sheriffe was back (in place of Reardon or someone else).

I'm not saying he shouldn't be given a chance. I'm not really criticising him, it was a big game and he did 95% of stuff well. All I was saying is suggesting he had a good game was forgetting a couple of things and to not let sentimentality of having talented young players detract from one or two mistakes he did make.

I was one of the people praising Crookes last year after he got in and was really unlucky to get injured. He was playing excellently at Wakefield before he went down. Just trying to make sure people don't get too carried away

Thats about the 4th or 5th time Reardon has switched off in defence in matchs, no wonder the Pies were targetting his side after the first woeful lapse.
Being cynical if that had been Platty the Muppets that don't like him would have been on here slavering for his head! Well I suspect Reardon has put his place up for grabs next week if Platty plays.

I agree

My mate started saying that Crookes isn't going to make it, on Friday night. I asked him how he could possibly say that after all the exposure we've had to him. I also said, I don't know if he's going to be good or bad, its too early to make that call. We saw a bit of both last night

First half,Wigan were on the ascendancy, Pat Richards was a handful (although I did say 'It's not like he's marking Lesley Vainikolo' when Crookes was brushed aside). In the second half he did a good job and looks like he could be a good runner

Reardon is a good player but he's NOT a winger. His positioning is terrible. In today's game, the wing is a very specialist position and Reardon hasn't adapted to it.

On saying that, he's a very good player and has had some great performances at full back. I would therefore switch him to full back and put Halley on the wing. This isn't to say that Halley isn't a good full-back, he clearly is, but since we are short of quality wingers, for the sake of the team, Halley should move to a position where he has shown he can cope.