my thoughts too.

hes gonna get targetted in defence if he goes to 6, which will slow down his attacking game.

maybe when hes older, 28 ish, he may have bulked up a bit and be more reliant on using his brain as opposed to his speed ( finchish)

Having taken part in training sessions with him at my old amateur club were he was coach, even at 18/19 he was unbelievable at passing. He could pass from one touchline to the other and accurate

Spat coffee all over the keyboard whilst reading that. Excellent sir.

When i first heard about Finch not signing i thought about it myself but it wouldn't work

We would lose so much strike power it can be compared to putting Pat at full back he is safe but far better on the wing and Sam is the same we have an extra half back coming into the line with him there and his foot work the way it is teams cant cope with it

I would love to know what his wrong with his passing game and which FB's have better passing games than him?

Sam has turned into the top fullback in super league and is probably in the top 3 in the world a the moment. Why on earth you'd want to move him is beyond me. He's played better at fullback than he has in the halves. We are loosing a half back, possibly 2, if so replace 2 half backs and leave a player in his usual position were he's playing out of this world.

Sam is arguably in the top 3 full backs for his attack but certainly not his defence. He's less than perfect under the high ball, in fact I don't know why more teams don't bomb him.

If Wigan can utilise his attacking from 6 then we would be much better playing there off a creative/controlling 7.
There is always the option of playing Lockers as a 1st receiver on one side with (perhaps Smith) on the other with Sam sill linking up in the 3/4 line.

We have the players who have the silk sets to be interchangeable depending on the play, this will keep the defence guessing. Personally I'd like to see Sam having a 'free role' attacking from 6.

people can say hes obviously a fullback but we havent seen him in a halfback role in almost two years and i think we can all say hes developed alot since then so id personally like to see what he could do.

If we were to move Sam from FB to SO all we'd lose would be his kick returns IMO. Just because he'd be down as a 6 on the team sheet doesn't mean he'd have to play first or second receiver all the time, if ever if he didn't want. Smith and Lockers could act as first and second receivers with Sam chiming in at the end of that, with Russel running lines off all three. I'm not for or against it. I just don't think because Sam would be named at 6 we'd see much of a different attacking structure than we already do, mainly thnx to lockers and his ability to play 6.

I'm still reasonably confident Finch will stay, making this topic null and void.

However I still hold the opinion that Sam's career will mirror that of Lockyers, by which I mean he'll play the early part of his career at FB, moving to SO as he age's.

That's fine in theory, but you say "replace two half-backs" as if they grow on trees. I don't see a huge pool of quality halfbacks that are queuing up to come to Wigan.

In an ideal world, yes, I agree, Sam at #1 would be best, but as things stand at present, we have no halves confirmed for next year, only rumours. We have a fullback (Russell) who is just about ready to step up (judging on his Hull performances), but neither Mellor nor Powell, IMO, are quite ready to take over in their positions. That makes us reliant on signings, and while I would be delighted if we could find someone of Finch's or Tommy's ability that is available, I don't see many out there.

(sorry if its been mentioned earlier I cant be bother reading all 4 pages haha)

To me the only reason to move him to 6 or 7 would be because we can get a world class FB in for next season but couldnt find ourselves a new 6 or 7 to replace the outgoing Tommy and possibly outgoing Finch.

OR have a quality fullback in the making (Russell) with a lack of quality halves available to us.

Anyone else think with how structured our attack is we could have a lineup something like:
1: Tomkins
6: Russell
7: Smith
13: O'Loughlin

With O'loughlin/Smith taking the roles of first recievers on each side or second link, and allowing both Russell and Tomkins to roam in the manner Sam already does? And have Sam at FB as his defensive aspects are better than Russells there?

Looks good to me.

I really doubt we'd play Russell at 6 when we have Sam in our team it just wouldn't happen.

I'd rather have Sam at the back (though naturally couldn't be sure of Russell in the defensive line). Either way, we'd still have a relatively fluid structure - Russell and Tomkins could easily rotate between the ghosting 3rd pivot and further in. I'd like to see Tomkins upping his distributional game slightly more this year as well as acting as the running half. Would make him even less predictable chiming into the threequarters that way.

I find it a bit baffling how this thread has popped up duringa period when the team, and Sam in particular, are playing some of their best rugby. I know we have next year to think about but lets just wait and see what happens with finch/further recruitment. Moving Sam back to 6 is always an option, but I don't think it would be wanes first choice option and I'm adamant that if we do lose both finch and tommy then we will see a replacement in both positions brought in, the salary cap and quota would certainly allow for it.

Well said

I'm not calling for Sam to be switched to half back but I thought we lacked fluidity in attack with Lockers standing in at 7, I wouldn't mind Tomkins being tried out at half back for spells during our next game to see what impact he could bring from this position in play making and running the ball. I thought with out Tommy Sam was less effective tonight and obviously Lockers was playing out of position.

Yes I agree with this but think Lockers will improve with the more games he has at 6. Must say that I think we are going to really miss Tommy more than I thought.

As I said when Tommy went down, I'd rather give Mellors a run of games to see if he's got what it takes. He looked good against us tonight.

lockers and finch both struggled with timing passes, as lockers got caught at the line a couple of times and finches passes were knocked down or intercepted a couple of times. may have just been mellor knowing finches game though. give them time.

Cant see Lockers or Tomkins being at half back for next season..

I'd take Rob Burrow if he suddenly became available