People see Kibulas size and instantly get exited but he doesn’t have the aggression to ram his size home and he’s lazy in defence, in reality his best attribute is his handling skill, he would be better suited playing 13 imo maybe losing some puppy fat but I don’t think he will make it at Wigan.
I have always said this that I don’t think being so big at such a young age is good for a players development, there will come a time when people catch up with you and you won’t be used to not playing against players half your size.

We have kept the squad together on the basis of running a reserve aside.

This week there is a meeting of sl chairmen at which it will be made compulsory for clubs to run a reserves side in 2020.

Mo9st clubs will need to sign a lot of players to do so.

We already have our reserves in place.

Salford have named an unchanged 19 man squad from the one that beat Warrington on Friday.

Normally I’d say don’t change a winning team but that’s when you have more than 72 hours between games.

The Salford line up will look something like this:

1. Evalds
2. Olpherts
3. Welham
4. Inu/Sa’u
5. Bibby
6. Lui
7. Hastings
8. Walker
9. Lussick
10. Dudson
11. Jones
12. Griffin
13. Burke/Flanagan

14. Wood
15. Murray
16. Nakubuwai
17. McCarthy

Playing in the championship could well be the making of him if his lazy defence can be sorted out. Given the way we are going we could well be playing him on the wing.

Kibula got thrown around at Thatto Heath last week, nothing like super league him.

If he was then whover picked it is completely brain dead.

Agree with you there in what you say, i would think there will nbe some things brought in though to accomodate this meaning more money can be spent as some clubs are capped up and have very shallow squads so wouldnt be able to fit anymore players in???

Surely forsyth is only on £200 a week anyway. Any more is far to much

Quote ="Cherry.Pie"No it doesn't. =#FF0000According to the cap rules published by the RFL if a player is aged 20 or under on 31/08/18 and isn't among the top 25 earners they don't count on the salary cap even if they play a salary cap relevant game. That would mean that outside of our top 25 earners the only player likely to have any effect on the cap if they played for our first team is Liam Forsyth. Now if the chairman uses the salary cap as a guide for spending on the entire squad then it will dilute the quality, but that's the chairman's choice rather than a salary cap issue.'" Only if they're on less than £20K per year. https://www.rugby-league.com/flipbooks/ ... html#p=277

Quote ="Cherry.Pie"No it doesn't. =#FF0000According to the cap rules published by the RFL if a player is aged 20 or under on 31/08/18 and isn't among the top 25 earners they don't count on the salary cap even if they play a salary cap relevant game. That would mean that outside of our top 25 earners the only player likely to have any effect on the cap if they played for our first team is Liam Forsyth. Now if the chairman uses the salary cap as a guide for spending on the entire squad then it will dilute the quality, but that's the chairman's choice rather than a salary cap issue.'" Only if they're on less than £20K per year. https://www.rugby-league.com/flipbooks/ ... html#p=277

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Only if they're on less than £20K per year. https://www.rugby-league.com/flipbooks/ ... html#p=277'" I thought it didn't sound accurate, as we had to ask for dispensation in 2017 but none of the players who played were over 21. I read it as players who fell into either category a) or b) but it does say a) and b). Which still means we're not paying a significant amount of cap for the majority of our fringe players and probably nothing at all for the likes of Smithies, Shorrocks, Bourouh and Smith.

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Only if they're on less than £20K per year. https://www.rugby-league.com/flipbooks/ ... html#p=277'" I thought it didn't sound accurate, as we had to ask for dispensation in 2017 but none of the players who played were over 21. I read it as players who fell into either category a) or b) but it does say a) and b). Which still means we're not paying a significant amount of cap for the majority of our fringe players and probably nothing at all for the likes of Smithies, Shorrocks, Bourouh and Smith.

It's a difficult one really. Do we go with a smaller but a "stronger/more experienced squad" or a bigger squad? With the injury situation this season I'm grateful for having more players, but if you don't have those injuries then a stronger squad would be more beneficial imo.

I think you need a balence between both. If you look at it most of the young players are not on cap... it's also not helped much having players to put in who are not upto SL level, our results show that. The only good thing is it gives them expierence. We have had shocking runs with injuries this year, along with changes and the stuff off field it is the worse we have had in SL era for me.

I wouldn't imagine that the fringe players who have featured this year have too much bearing on the cap. Assuming the under 19's qualified players who aren't on first team contracts aren't earning enough to be counted we're only looking at the likes of Partington, Paisley and Byrne as having their salary counted. Maybe the club is leaving a significant amount of room left over to allow fringe players to play, but I'd say we're looking at around a 30 man squad, with the rest not counting because they won't play. The players who are loaned out will presumably stay loaned out.

If that's the case, the overwhelming majority of the cap will still be tied up in the top 25 squad players like most other clubs. The 15 or so players with squad numbers outside of that shouldn't be hampering our spending power too much.

Discipline and attitude in defence awful again. Some of these players are really letting the club down.

Overall it was a gutsy effort I thought. There’s some real issues with our defence around the middle and our go forward in that area but the players did just enough. Our discipline (well Isa and Tautai’s discipline) is another area needing urgent attention.

We’re absolutely desperate for another prop forward from somewhere.

It's a good job we were playing a team with even worse discipline than us, otherwise that would have been another game down the pan.

I thought we did really well considering the battering we took Friday . I thought Salford would dominate the last 20 mins as we tired but we dug in and showed some guts and spirit.

Discipline or lack there of is absolutely killing us.
What should have been a straightforward win turned into a get out of jail win thanks to a miracle play.
Thank god for the two points though.

If only Williams realised he could pass to his right. We telegraphed the moves to Gildart & Greenwood too much IMO.

Good game that could have gone either way,the lack of discipline is at times shocking and against better teams will finish Wigan off,still after Friday a win is a win

Yeah, it's Williams fault.

Astonishing today after Williams first 25mins where he created a try ,created an opportunity that burgess should have scored, nearly scored twice himself, got 3 repeat sets, made a dozen tackles and was basically outstanding - he then kicks to corner on 2nd tackle and Burgess doesn't get to it and the wall of deafining criticism from the experts was astonishing!

He put one average bomb up in 2nd half (shorrocks put 2 terrible ones in) and they're at it again, despite him putting Greenwood in for 2 tries, made another dozen Tackles, takes a quick restart after Salford fail to score over line where he's involved in the tackle amd makes 15yards, and chased his own bomb and recollects and offloaded for hardaker try.

Said on way back, I'm going to cherish his last 20 or so games for Wigan, because I'm not sure where were going to find a player who does What He does for Wigan over and over again.

Absolutely bang on mate, some of the criticism he gets sickens me, he’s our most creative player buy a mile and has been good this season, year after year he tops the try scoring charts and often gets into double figures for tries, those “experts” will soon realise next year when we have Woods and Shorrocks in the halves

We’d be knackered (and soon will be) without Williams. I said after the game today that him along with that left edge in general will steer us clear of any trouble. Don’t get me wrong Williams can be frustrating but only because he’s a fantastic talent who sometimes could produce even more then he does.

Williams certainly can't be faulted for his attitude, wherever he goes. He continues to put a shift in and as said upthread, did some great things today. If every player in the squad had his attitude, we'd surely be better off now.

Our defence is as bad as any team I've seen at SL level, it's embarrassing. This has been a consistent issue Lam this season. After 11-12 games it massively needs addressing, we seem to have lost our structure and aggression completely.