By all means give him support, but he should never of been signed IMO.

Completely agree, hindsight would be nice, but then again the club didn't need it, they should have predicted better in regards to Ainscough coming through.

This is the most worrying thing of all!

True, but there again Richards has his goal kicking, which brings him up closer to Shaun in value...



It was noticeable on Sunday, though, that without Hock our left/right balance is a lot more even. We do need a right-sided half back to play alongside Sam, though - someone like Myler, for example?

Not just Ainscough, we would of been fine with Colbon for another year with a good centre. He was pretty quick solid enough on a low wage and could finish better than Roberts.

where can we find strike rates bilks?

im curious as to how roberts compares career wise to someone like Dallas, or homegrown like Robinson and Offiah.

im not going back to bostons era as i believe defenses wernt as good then as now, although his tries still needed scoring.

He was quick for a second rower, yep.

Add to the fact we had Phelps, Pryce and Mathers and players like Vuna were coming off contract this year it makes the decison to sign him very silly indeed.

Phelps is better than Roberts by miles this season. I am not one for playing Ainscough all the time but I think he would be scoring alot more tries than Roberts atm. Shame he would let a few in as well, but Roberts is not the safest either.

Mathers is doing ok now he's playing in a good team/atmosphere. Certainly not a 0% strike rate any more.

Focusing more on developing are youngsters, we could have this year with out Roberts rotated Phelps from fullback to wing and in his place given game time to both Ainscough and Veivers. However like others have mentioned were stuck with him now and we'll have to make the best off it, and who knows with a new coach who encourages more open short side play he may come good.

He has in Super Leauge.

amirite?

It will be good to see him in open space without Fox chasing him to see how quick he is compared to others. It is a fair point though he could be a worl beater with a new coach. He may get better also, remember what Richards was like.

That oversimplification was applied to Calderwood. He was apparently crap because he needed the service and when he didn't get it was deemed not the sort of winger we required. It was all his fault for not coming looking for work or making the opportunities for himself.

His poor strike rate was deemed mostly his fault by many and we were being told we should get shut as he wasn't the sort of winger we needed.

Now someone else is in the same boat and we get a different story. It's not the winger fault after all. Unbelievable.

Dave

For your current bout of indignation to actually be close to reality it needs to be the same people slagging Calderwood then defending Roberts for the same thing.

Given you'll unlikely be able to show that actually happened, I think we can safely say you've shown an "unbelievable" amount of "oversimplification".

What makes this lack of foresight even worse is we were originally lining up Roberts for 2010 not this season. We had not planned for him to be here this season but went for him anyway.

Had we stuck to the original plan would we still be going for him in 2010 given how Ainscough went when given the chance? I have my doubts.

Dave

I worked it out myself.

Robinson's only played at Wigan so his strike rate was 60.8%
Dallas during his Wigan career was 60.4%

Offiah at Wigan was a staggering 116.8% - although this is currently bettered by Shaun Ainscough lol!

That's amazing really, the circumstances were all right for him, a top class winger in a dominant team. Not many players get that for any length of time.

I think you're being a touch harsh on Phelps and McIlorum there. Both are just kids and Phelps has been shifted around a few positions hasn't he?

I think Phelps as played roughly 75% of the season at FB... agreed?

I'd expect a far better strike rate from a good FB as many quote.

Macca, I'd not expecting huge chance, just a few more if you get my drift.

I'll bow to your greater knowedge, but I thought he'd been shifted round a bit more than that.

Phelps has started 9 at Full Back (64% of appearances), 4 at Centre and 1 on the wing. 4 of his 5 tries came playing at Centre.

Pat Richards has started an even 9 games at Full Back and 9 games on the wing. Whilst playing at Full Back he's scored three. On the Wing he has 12 tries.

Well that's not difficult.

You know me too well