Surely Noble can't overlook the impact Tommy has had at hooker?

He must go for the option that I suggested in this thread:

bet you thought he was useless when he won the 3 grand finals he has to his name, guess you think he was useless when we got to the semi final on 2 occasions under him, we all know that noble always has 3 or 4 forwards on the bench thats the game he plays, he wants forwards, you need forwards to get up the field to let your backs play of the back of that

As I said in a previous post, Brad Drew targetted Smith and Phelps in the defensive line on our right side.

The biggest probelm we have is that Smith is out of position at 6. The lads a scrum half not a stand off.

Yes in some cases it would not matter as you get players who can play both. Tim Smith however is not one of these players he is a classic 7.

Tommy is the more versatile of the two and should play at stand off even though his best position is definatly 9.

As the previous poster stated Smith is a 7

This may sound Irish but I would be tempted to bring Smith closer in re defence and put Lockers inside the right centre. Out wide is where you are often forced to defend 1 v 1 but closer to the action Smith would have other defenders to help him.

there isnt much difference at wigan if you play scrum half or stand off, they just split the field smith operates the right and lulu the left its only on 4th that they link up

tommy should move up to 9 and bring sam on but then i think where very lightweight in defence

In terms of defence what I cannot fathom is why Noble does not adjust his defence to fit the team. We have a big set of forwards and reasonably fast backs. Surely, an umbrella defence with the backs moving up quickly to force the opposition back into our forwards is a better bet than our sliding defence.

I'm not turning this into another anti Noble thread. If you want to look at how me and others rate Noble and the problems i have with his management then look on the anti Noble thread.

Karl Pryce to 7

I think he should start off with Tommy, put riddell on the bench, then have smith at SH, Lockers at SO and have J Tomkins starting at loose... That way it'll give Riddell time to read the game from the bench, he can come on, see where the weak areas are in Hull's defence and exploit em.

Not again and so I take it you expect McIllorum to miss out of the 17?

If so and if Coley plays that will mean the only change will have been the forced change of Mathers.

Unless if course he puts Prescott in instead of O'Caroll



Dave

Unfortunately, yeah.

Tommy playing at hooker is too good of an attacking oppotunity to miss out on.

On the other hand, we do need stability at 6 and 7.

It's a big headache for Noble.

Worrying though if a side is defensively weak on the outside?

When Noble voiced comments about certain players having thier own agenda on the radio...he then stated he would have to make sure he picked the " right team " to play hull

....seems much the same to me.

Sorry mate but that was round 17 and if you're not up to it now then you haven't got much time left to put things right lol

He didn't directly said players had their own agenda. What he actually said, in response to the interviewer asking if the fact that a weakened Wakefield team had made some players complacent, he replied that as a team they had not focussed on the fact that Wakefield had injury problems, and if players had that on their own agendas he would be addresing that with them.

I think Trevor (was it Trevor?) on GMR just heard "the players have their own agendas" and went with it, and repeated that over and over, instead of placing it in context.

Noble only said that the team had not focussed on the injury situation in their match preparation.

This squad sums up the whole problem with Wigan under Noble.

No matter how badly they play (and last Sunday was as bad as possible surely), the vast majority of them know they'll NEVER get dropped with this man in charge. No pressure for places at all.

Sam Tomkins must wonder what the hell he has to do to get a chance.

I think it is not just TL at 9 that may be attractive to Noble as an option but that he also wants to play both Lockers and J Tomkins.

The only way he can so that is move Lockers to 6 , Smith to 7, TL to 9 ( and Riddell to the bench).

If I am right he could do this by dropping Bailey and moving Lockers to 2nd row. With 39 tackles in the last game that would be tough on Bailey but that is the best choice Noble has if he wants to play both Lockers and J Tomkins IMO.

If on the other hand, it is just that TL is preferred as second hooker over McIllorum then Noble should bite the bullet and put TL on the bench as replacement hooker and play Smith at 7 and Sam T at 6 from the off.

I have my doubts we will ever see Smith at 7 and Sam T at 6 though as Smith is not a good defender and I reckon Noble thinks Sam T is too small to be a good defender as well.

Dave

Sam does tackle well above his weight though in Academy, although I accept SL is a far cry from Academy RL. What about putting one of our better defenders ie. Lockers etc inside him?

I like the idea of Smith/Tomkins starting HB but I don't think Tomkins should be thrown in as a panic by Noble, ST already has a tremendous amount of expectation and as a side effect of that, pressurisation from the fans to perform and to lift the team, I have no doubts whatsoever he has the capability and the ability to do so but ST should be brought into the first team in less pressure situations. Hull FC is too much of an important game for Wigan IMHO.

Glad to see that McIlorum is in the squad but i wouldn't expect him to be played. It's probably abit of a token gesture from Noble after the flack he recieved last weekend for not having a back up half/hooker on the bench.

I hope Lenagan takes matters into his own hands and offers Sam Tomkins to a few superleague clubs on loan to try and get the lad some experience.........he isn't going to get that here under Noble.

That's what I'd think is the best option for us to swith to once Riddell grafted with the forwards.

Remember how we scored our only try on Sunday? Tim Smith's short ball to O'Loughlin with J. Tomkins supporting.

In regards to Bailey, we had Hansen on the bench whom we know can do just as good if not better defensive display than Bailey, hence why I'd drop him and start Hansen who was sat on the bench for most the game and was waste of a sub.

How is it possible to lose a game in the fashion we did, and the only change being a forced one because the player got banned?

It's ridiculous. What's the point in having a large squad with competition for places, if you're not going to take advantage of it??

Because it was the first game and to change everything round could have a more detrimental than advantageous effect?

I would have wanted probably one more change (Prescott for Coley) but other than that I'm happy with the squad selection and just hope the players perform differently.

That was the only other change I would have made.

Hopefully it may still happen.