Is everyone happy with our new signing?

I'm a little concerned over Lineham's fitness. He's not far off but he doesn't look as toned as Joel. Monas is looking very sharp, fast and solid and as good in the air as always. I would say better form than Tom.
Tom has years on his side but currently it looks like the horse bolted the cart on Monas.

The errors Tom made at Hull I would put down to his suspect conditioning over Hull's defensive efforts.

To be brutally honest I am not that keen. I am not sure what he offers over Ormsby.

Jury still out on this one.

He's no worse than Monas defensively and 8 tries in 8 games is as good a ratio as Monas had. We needed freshening and overall we can't complain about the impact of the changes. His stats look good alongside Penny's too.

TBH yesterday apart from the obvious with his poor defending and scoring the tries , he looked distracted as if he had going back to his old club syndrome

He got involved with the fans and lost a bit of focus

Overall he does still look bit weighty still,goes well in a straight line and makes a few yards carrying the ball back,he is probably a bit guilty of trying the trademark flying pig routine too much sometimes when using his size and strength seems a better option to come inside

Thought Ormsby may have played yesterday but to compare them to each other,neither are that mobile both have a decent leap and both are strong,i think Ormsby is the better defender but Lineham the better finisher

Got a feeling TS may rest him for the Wigan game as he looked knackered yesterday,depends how recovery goes i suppose

He's never looked fit and has a strange running style which makes things look worse I think. great finisher but he's a big unit so isn't that mobile in defence which Hull exploited yesterday.

He's far quicker than Monas, some of his finishes this year have been fantastic. The winger is always going to be under the spotlight in terms of defensive positioning, as any slight mistake often leads to a try.

I'm happy with him so far, he's probably behind most of our new recruits in terms of performance, but the rest have started very well.

Strange - 8 out of 8, and yet he's the new signing I'm least impressed with (verdict out on Bailey for obvious reasons) given the expectation.
(And Cox or Sandow would be the most impressive for me).

Lineham got riled by the fans yesterday in the 2nd half. That's the only time since Matt King that I've seen a Wire player with that sort of reaction. (I was nowhere near it, but it was clear something was going on).
Irrespective of that he has the potential to be very good but needs to knuckle down, concentrate 100% in games and develop his rugby league brain.

If you look at Penny taking the ball in, he seems to make a couple of extra yards by body position and leg drive. With Tom, he just seems to go to ground fairly easily. That might be what he's been told to do. I'm not sure. Interested to hear others views.

As Affi_7 says - winger always looks a numpty if he makes a mistake defending, but when it's a 2 on 1 then the issue isn't generally with the winger. (You could argue that perhaps he needs to read the game a little better and come in, but it's a tough call and you can't always get it right).

Alffie-7 I can't see him being "far" quicker than Joel. Certainly not under current form.
He could be deceivingly quicker?

I think the opposite, his defence is not great but okay.

If we have recruited a winger the same speed or slower than Monas then we are in trouble, Lineham should be streets ahead of Monas

He might do a bit better if took the sleeping bag from down the back of his shorts

I don't think were facing trouble. He looks a couple of weeks out of shape and it's telling in his all round game IMO.....

On a positive thought, I remember when I first saw Hicks with a beer belly, out on the town with Micky Monas before our season started thinking why have we signed him.

Scapegoat of the week. Last week it was Evans. ............Get off his back!

Are you Mrs Lineham?

He's not a scape goat, but I think is fair to say his finishing on at least one of his efforts could have had a greater bearing on the result.
I think he will be a menace the nearest winger we've had to Meninga in scope, he just looks behind where he ought to be at this stage.

People are entitled to an opinion particularly when there's a fee attached and therefore it's difficult to temper expectations.

IMO not everything can be attributed to scapegoating. He's a professional, presumably a highly paid one in the terms of our sport and he surely has a duty to work on the weaker parts of his game, not just for us the paying customer, but, also for self improvement, if it can be done without weakening the stronger parts of his game.

What is telling is that the Hull FC speccies called it and so did their coach.

I don't care what he is as long he is faster than the last bloke in that position, if he has to train harder then so be it. If he has to be the scapegoat for a period then so be it. For the money paid his scapegoatness must be short lived or else!!

Incidentally I think the usual scapegoat Ryan Atkins has been pretty decent in the last two games.

Did you see coaches corner last week? very open statements from atkins about his historic form and requirements on him.

Why did we sign Lineham? To score tries. He is scoring at rate of one a game. That will do me.

Yes that's it, score a hat trick at home to HKR, bomb a chance or two at FC away it's evens-Steven's.

TANCW you've got to want more than that, I do perhaps unreasonably so. Or are you saying that he couldn't/shouldn't do more as in any event it's all simply about number crunching averaged out over a season, a profit and loss account?

Unbelievable Jeff.

We've bought a player to do a job....score tries. He's doing it, and still some bleat.
He's scoring at a rate of one per game. Pretty impressive, but not enough for some.
He's not had the mickey took out of him, by the opposition's winger, but faults are being found.
The dimensions of his Aris are being brought into doubt. Tell you what. Remember the early days of SL, when certain try scorers had their own songs when they scored. Perhaps we should use The Devine Comedy's "National Express" for the line "but it's hard to get by, when you're ar5e is the size of a small country" whenever he goes over the whitewash.

It's almost like winning one of those 80's competitions WIN A DATE WITH A PAGE 3 GIRL/ MISS GB. You greet her with a kiss on the cheek, only to tell her a couple of seconds later that you don't like the way she's done her hair.

For the record, my only gripe with Lineham is the money we've spent on him, but it's not my dosh, it's Moran's.

Some people on here would whinge if they'd won a triple rollover jackpot on the lottery, only to be told that they had to share it with one other punter.

I know, let's swapping with Patrick Ah Verage at the Smellies

YCNMIU

Poor lad! He scores a totally solo try from a bit of quick thinking and another ... but they seem to be not even worth a mention. Oh come on.

This thread should be titled: Tom Lineham - we've found our new scapegoat. I suppose we desperately needed a new one now Atkins has found some form! 8 from 8, he's still young and in a new team, besides everybody (and team) has an off day, lets give him a proper chance. Can't we just do without a scapegoat? considering nobody would have really thought we would have won 7 from 8 at the start of the season and sit top of the pile on points difference.

For the record I am making it up, it's called an opinion and here's another whilst you're at it, if there's any negative comments no matter how slight there are some too quick to use the scapegoat card IMO and that's why I posted.

My "bleating and whinging" FWIW is based on a view that although I agree that he was bought to score try's and 8 in 8 might look impressive it is too simplistic to measure performance, or may be you think it isn't, simplistic that is as you're obviously impressed? If only he'd scored another hat trick on Monday we'd have won, no bleating/scapegoating just crowing, but, he didn't and we didn't...just think if he hadn't dropped it over the line he could have taken a two week sabbatical from try scoring.

I don't want to see him fail BTW I just thought that the OP made a valid point for discussion, he posed a question only to be shot down

He's been brought in to score tries, he's doing it. Why are we whinging?
He'll have opportunities to score tries, but he'll miss some of these opportunities, either because he's made a mistake/took a wrong option/good opposition defence. He's a RL player. Des Drummond, who's seen as a God on here by some (me included), did this. As did Joel Monaghan, and John and Brian Bevan. See. Even the best don't score EVERY time.

You can transpose this into any sport. It's The Masters, next week. You can guarantee Rory McIlroy will (at least 5 times or so, during his 72 holes) knock a great iron shot to 12 feet, and guess what, he'll miss the putt. THAT'S SPORT. I can guarantee his fans and commentators wont get on his back for it.

We're top of the league, and Lineham's at the upper end of the try scoring charts, and someone's started a whinging thread.
As I said, unbelievable, Jeff.

Thanks UR.