So Smith should be dropped this week ? It was Tim Smith for Australia last week!

Lulu is neither one thing nor the other.

A scrum half he will never be.

An hooker he is too small, especially with a lightweight pack like we have.

Move him to hooker and get a bigger pack. Bit like the NZ national team.

Feka to me just needs a bit of managing. He always manages to make ground, but sometimes (as yesterday) there are no offloads, or there is no one to take the quick PTB following, to take advantage of the 3 or 4 defenders he can tie up.

so yesterday, for all his metreage, we never really gained any momentum from his runs. In fact, his most important contribution was as a dummy runner for the last try.

with a good coach, and people running up his to take advantage, then he is worth keeping. he can be a very valuable part of bigger picture, but that we need a coach with vision, respect and coaching ability.

i think we could prob have this same argument for about half a dozen players.

There is a big difference though, Maurie is our 4th prop who comes on for short bursts to make an impact after the starting forwards.

Feka is your No1 prop who you rely on heavily, yet he struggles to get half an hour in.

I've always said, Drop him and tell him he won't be selected if he doesn't lose two stone. If he doesn't, get rid. A 'big' waist of money.

I THOUGHT AINSCOUGH HAD A GOOD GAME??

He wouldn't get a job as an impact player at any of the good NRL sides. He's too unfit.

Nail on the head, end of thread.

Spot on. If the Wigan coaching and stff had any balls, they'd drop him, but I'm not goin to be hopeful

I take it you didn't see the game yesterday then.

He is without doubt worth keeping, there is no-one else who lifts the team or the fans as much as Feka when he isn the pitch. Not to mention he's our only prop capable of breaking a tackle!

There is no better impact props going, course he could do with losing a bit of weight but if he lost anything more than a stone he would lose all his explosiveness IMO

If we had 2 quality starting props capable of laying the platform and making the yards nobody would say a bad word about Feka.

If the coaching staff decided to utlise hiim properly by getting him running onto the ball from deeper and stopping the sidestepping lark, which has been cut out a good bit in the last couple of weeks, he would be a miles better prop (same goes for all our props to be honest)

Keep going big man

, its the other props that should be having a look at themselves

It's also worth noting that there is some talk in the NRL currently about moving away from the impact role - certainly in the case of props. I think it was Jason Taylor who said it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify the selection of players who are unable to do much more than 40 minutes of work out of 80. Which leaves guys like Feka on the cusp of anachronism.

He's fantastic at that when we are winning, but when the team is losing and down in the dumps, he's not worth a carrot, games like the Castleford, Wakefield (start of season) Hull KR at home, Celtic last night, where was he to step up and get the team encouraged, he's not on the field long enough to a make ahuge difference to the attitude on the field at that time, he coes on makes 4 good runs, then goes off. not really team lifting stuff.

What a complete load of tosh. Feka is the best impact prop in SL by miles and changes games when he comes on why would we want to lose that? The other props in our squad are where the problems lie. Feka's game time is fine as well imo he regulary plays 40 mins during the game which is fine for one of four props!!

Other fans can come on here as much as they want and slate him but the fact remains there isn’t one team in SL who Feka wouldn’t walk into.



You most defiantly don’t make sense. Richards has played a key role in a GF winning side? Prescott is still a relative youngster playing prop and it’s players like Coley and Fielden that should be taking control of a game rather than him. What really do you expect him to do?



How are Briscoe and Burgess realistic targets? Burgess is Bradford through and through and Briscoe has already turned us down once and just signed a brand new contract??

Plus we don't need Briscoe FFS we’ve got Richards, Phelps, Roberts and Ainscough which more than covers the back three!! FB isn’t that important compared to the other areas we need to fill. You could have Slater playing for us and he’d do fook all as we’ve got no go forward when Feka isn’t on and we haven’t got any control at HB either.

as an outsider i think the feka issue kinda mirrors the problems you're having with the team at the moment.


Not as good as you think you are/should be.

Personally i think you should cut your losses on him, how longs left on his contract.

We could replace him with ease, I suppose he's at the club to has they will make alot more from his name with the kids then other players. His contract is up next year.

Burgess - Bradford through and through. quite like Mr Fielden then?

The club needs to shed the deadweight, some carrying it on the field. Don't think I've ever seen Feka put 40mins into a match? what did he do in the forsthalf yesterday? 23min he came on? second half went off after about 11 mins to do 5 at the end?

I'm not saying he's crap, I'm just saying he's crap at the minute, we could have better, maybe underthe right coach, he'll perform far better, but I'd consist him for the drop to show him he isn't guaranteed first team.

I don't buy this "impact" prop garbage anymore

The word has krept into our vocabulary to justify the small amount of time Feka is on the park

Every prop should be capable of putting in a 60 min shift in. The coach should then be able to rotate the bench so that the reason a prop makes an impact is that he has fresh leg, nothing more

If we can train him up to do this great, if not get rid

I would never describe Skerritt, Platt, Cowie, Lucas, or Dowling as an impact prop. They don't exist

Feka does about 40mins a game with-

The last 20mins of the 1st half,
the 1st ten of the 2nd half,
Then about the last 10 of the game.

Not an exact science but it’s around 40 out of the 80 playing mins but no one will ever acknowledge that. The spells when he’s on also are the times when we have the most go forward. Now if Feka is on for 40 mins what are the other three props doing?

Feka is an easy target cause of the way he looks.

That's 33mins from your own speculative calculation isn't it? Only 7 mins short of the 40 you’ve never seen him do???

How very dare you!!! I'm of similar proportions to him.

On a serious note his game time is dictated by his fitness not tactics, so I still don't buy this impact prop position that keeps being quoted

Who would you replace him with?

Fielden situation different to Burgess and Fielden is anyway so bit of a bad example

Feka did 58 minutes against Catalans in the play offs last season and all of our props are doing around 40 minutes a match now anyway.

Feka has made more metres AND carries than any other of our props this season so you CAN'T use the 'he only plays 5 minutes a game' .

Its the starting props we should be criticising not Feka. The starters are meant to be our 2 best props and get us off to a decent start but their both poor and leave Feka and Prescott to come on when the team is down and in the mire.

You reckon he's on good money? I agree he probably is but Fielden and probably Coley will be on more and provide a lot worse vakue for money than Feka

agree with everything you say mate.

maybe they offer slighty less in the means of metres forward, but they make up for it by far in defence compared to Feka. Both Fielden and Coley. Yes Feka makes 10metres more but over the set of six, you do the same as you lose out on the quick play of the ball, as he spends forever rolling on the floor trying to play the ball, I believe we score most tries after a Fielden/Coley drive, drop to their knees quick-ish play of the ball, due to their set up for the play of the ball, out to Hock, as the defences line hasn't set, usually score.

Fielden at Bradford the time we signed him? I'd class him and Burgess no better then one another.

I'd rather a 10 metre drive with a slow PTB than a 5 metre drive with an average PTB at best, do not kid yourself there PTB speeds are not key in us scoring tries.

Forgot to mention both Fielden and Coley make more errors and concede more penalties too.

Fielden gets through a lot of work in defence but doesn't hit the opposition player hard in the tackle. Even so for the money he will be on he should be the leagues best prop in defence and attack by a clear distance and he simply isn't, how you could justify keeping him before Feka is beyond me.

Coley is alright in defence but still misses tackles and gives away silly penalties.

Also I think Fielden coming had a bit more to do with Noble and money and I see Burgess as more loyal than that

You still didn't reply to the rest of my post and I'd appreciate it if you would reply to all of my post and not just pick a bit as you please