I don't see what Evans has done to make anyone think he will be a winger?

Yes he is Defensively sound but thats like saying we should play john.terry up front for England because he is better in.defence than Daniel sturridge!!

Lineham will score given.the opportunities and not just from.kicks provided by gidley n sandow. If the stories are true and we're after Watkins then lineham will have a great partner, Who will be Defensively sound but offer somthing in attack which were missing. Atkins is safe after this season's performance. Can we afford to keep Evans on as cover, I think after this season's performances he will have no problems getting another club.

1. Russel
2. lineham
3. Watkins
4. Atkins
5. Penny
6. Gidley
7 sandow

Is a pretty formidable set of backs who behind a dominant pack should run riot but also have individuals who can break Close games.

Matty Russell
Positives....
Great return of ball and runs well from acting half. Both can be utilised off a wing position or fullback.
Negatives...poor last line of defence, seldom makes passes, seldom in a support position in attack, poor under high ball, small height put him at a disadvantage agains tall players unders high ball. All attributes of a fullback.

Russell is best as a winger.

radford couldn't wait to get rid of lineham and has been proven right so far. There's a decent player in there somewhere but he needs to start taking his career seriously or he'll be in the championship playing part time in a year or two

That's the thing with me, a general lack of effort..possibly in life, sending him to Rochdale didn't seem like a kick, being dropped full stop and he's all "meh", he's naturally gifted but doesn't want to apply himself.

We paid for him, that to me is the most baffling thing.

I don't think it's a secret we have always been in pursuit of a Hall type winger.
We had something like with Hicks and Joel. I think we thought Lineham would be the next.

The best Full Back we have had this year for me is Ratchford. Russell is poor under the high ball and teams know it so much so that we swapped in attack and defence with Johnson against Widnes away and whilst we won that game in a canter it's not the way to go shirley?

Back to Lineham, the good news as far as I'm concerned is that it's completely up to him what standard of rugby he plays. Unfortunately, the bad news is that it's completely up to him what standard of rugby he plays.

Ratchford has really improved his positioning at full back over the last couple of months. That may well be Gidley's influence. I have always liked the option of having 3 pivots from the days of Hodgson and would prefer to leave Ratchford where he is. After Gidley, he is our best full back without a doubt.

Russell is a poor decision maker but does create problems for the opposition with his ability to bring the ball strongly out of defence. On balance, unless Lineham is showing something exceptional in training I would leave our wingers as they are.

Top Trumps
Russell vs Lineham

Russell wins....
Great attitude
Willing to look for ball at acting hb
Great return of ball, yards per carry
Small build makes defence against him difficult.
Can turn devasively in attack
Can duck tackles and make breaks
Can bounce off a lone tackler

Vs

Lineham wins....
Big to collect under the kick high ball in attack
Big to collect high bomb in defence
Long striding straight running that is deceivingly fast
Strong body for winning a collision
Tall to find extra when reaching for the try line
Difficult to push or tackle into touch
Can carry defenders with him when going forward
Strength to put the ball down for a try when covered with defenders

Result.....
My head hurts. White flag!

Lol

As a.large portion of trys scored by wingers is from a kick surly lineham.edges it?? If he is performing in training get him.on the pitch!!

I prefere Russel at fb his ball return is a million times better than ratchfords which is the difference between kicking in our own half or in the opposition half!!

Ratchford is juts a square peg in round holes!! We're moving people about to accommodate him!! We did pretty well with russell at fb at start if season.just like lineham.was scoring at the start of the season was he.not 10 for 10 or somthing.like that early on in the season

No, see, this is what people were doing last year, when russell was out and the anti ratch bandwagon started.

You remember the good points on russell, but not the bad points, these great kick returns are nullified against a team that puts high balls to him, or high balls behind him forcing a turn.

i'd say we've looked better with ratch at one, and he's not really had a stinker yet.


Personally, i'd say square peg in a round hole is way off with the current situation.

I don't know which Warrington you are watching Dessie mate, but Ratchford is one of the best pivot backs in the game.
While Russell has a better kick return, that doesn't make him a FB.

Lineham started off the season fairly well imo. Nothing to get too excited about but solid. His performances and confidence went downhill after the loss at the KC and the decline has been gradual. More worryingly his attitude has gone with it. It's up to him from here, he either knuckles down and proves his worth to TS or if not, it could be a short stay.

i wasn't overly pleased with his performances from the start of the year, try scoring aside i was disapointed with his output.

He has not exactly set the world on fire has he. And we don't exactly have two centres that make a lot of passes to their wing man. Hence the one thing that Lineham does really well - score decent tries when given a bit of space, is also 'off the menu'. So that begs the question as to why we bought him in the first place. If we paired him up with an earlier version Chris Bridge you could see the logic, but at the moment all you see are his defects.

Even if he was outside, briers, westwood, and gleeson, you'd still see his half d kick returns, he leisurely chases to kicks, his not very good positioning also for kicks(being smart and good anticipation can make up for lack of speed) and all round, well, malaise really.

He'd scored 20+ tries but probably cost us that, and probably several drop outs to boot.

All that being said, i do want him to be a success, he'd score a lot more brownie points with me if he pulled his socks up, i mean ACTUALLY, pulled his socks up on a match day.

How do you solve a problem like Tom Lineham?
Out of favor again and dropped out of the 19 for Dec Patton.

Contracted until 2019. Not looking good.
We should have paid for him using "Paypal". We could have then had a refund for "Not as described" or " Lost in the post"

Why blame the player ? The buck should stop at whoever decided to bring him in at an inflated price ,as with Roy Asotasi. There is plenty of video evidence about to watch players before they are signed. Poor decisions !

I still think he will come good. Remember a certain Matt King?

As Ninearches says those that scouted have to shoulder some of the blame. However, once the ink is dry on the contract the player has to perform whether he is a fat lump or skin and bone its his job. He's not flown in from Aus he is 3 hours down the road and a move here is not the end of the world. He a young bloke earning (probably) a great wage playing a sport he loves. Perhaps he is just a mardy pants and wants to be back home having his arris wiped.

Back to Ninearches point again someone should have worked out 75% of the issues and probably we wouldn't have signed him.

and thereby is a potential problem. Sure Lineham and King could have what is best described as slow starts to their Wire careers, I'm just not convinced that in Lineham's case the player himself wants to or just as worryingly has the capability to turn things around.

There should be no talk of last chance saloon type stuff he should be heading into his prime and it may yet work out but the odds are heavily stacked against it unfortunately IMO I also agree with those that lay some of the blame with those involved in parting with the cash....it's not looking great

i dont think you can compare the two really, aside from big money moves the situations are different.

king was a SOO player and Aussie rep player(allbeit fringe ish) who was brought over with a lot of expectation and to be fair as Rob Wire pointed out at the time, wasn't the player we were expecting and we didn't know how to use him and but expected him to be a world beater, and added to that came into a very very underachieving squad that was dishevelled early on through injuries in a bunch of crap weather, 2008 really was garbage looking back.

Whereas lineham is a young lad, lot of potential with some kinks to his game but doesn't seem to be that d about the fact he needs to sort said items out, but also its eroding his once good reputation. In a squad that did seem to be on the up and up.


That probably isn't a fair representation of the lineham situ, and i'll hold my hand up to that, but writing about 08 season really just took it out of me

the comparison is that they are both humans (strange, unpredictable creatures) ...and each can take time to adjust for lots of different reasons. I don't think anyone would disagree that Lineham has all the ingredients to be a top player....his head just needs sorting out. If anyone can do that its Tony Smith. I hope so.

Shame about tom as imo could be a very good winger, his temperament can be his undoing as it was crap at fc, nothing bad just couldn't be d most of the time, likeable lad just maybe needs to grow up a bit,still young so he may well do, the other thing which I have noticed is he seems to be a bit slower than he was with us, take the semi against you guys when he was pretty quick, all in all time is on his side and you may yet have a gem on your hands

He's a bum, he's one of those pupils that teachers always hate, the one in which they see so much potential but the kid just cba and prefers to mess about.

He needs 1 of 3 things, a serious kick up the backside, a professional shrink or showing the door regardless of cost.

I wanted to blame the scouts but the thing is everyone can see the potential, including, Smith/Agar, the board, everyone sees it except Mr T Lineham