for some reason noble seems to think that roberts is better than ainscough even though ainscough as scored 5 times more tries

I like Roberts, but the thing that annoys me with him is, that he actually gets up there, manages to catch the ball but drops it on his way down, theres nothing wrong with his ability to catch a high ball he just needs to work on keeping hold of it under pressure.
He has great footwork and speed and links up really well with Gleeson and Roberts, he wasnt our worst player on the field on Saturday and hes not been our worst player all season. Whether people like it or not he's here for the next 3 years so instead of knocking his confidence and slating him at every opportunity maybe we should actually support him and get him back on form. He is not the worst winger in the league, i would have him over Gardner, Meli, Hodgson and many others, in fact the only players in the league i would have on the wing over him thats not at wigan is Hicks, Donald and Hall.
The only thing that worries me though is that with Roberts and Richards here till 2012 and 2013 respectively where does that leave Ainscough in the future? He wont want to wait that long.

Why at half time didn't Noble change the team around? I mean come on, fair enough he dropped one ball and they scored, everyone makes mistakes, but giving warrington 3 tries cost us the game. He really needes to work on his catching practice, he backs away to easy.

De ja vu x 347.9

they hammerd us with king on ainscough at HJ an nobby did newt about that neither

Who else you gonna put on?

Swap Richards and Roberts around

And then they target the other side... simple as that.

People don't realise that it's the same in every team, not just Wigan.

But King isn't on the other side.

I'm not saying it's ideal, it's just what people have been mentioning on this thread.

But those trys were only conceded because he was up against matt king - hicks wouldnt have scored them, king didnt even have to jump he is a giant, its just like us with Pat Richards, we used to use it all the time last year and now we dont seem to do it!!

If Wigan had swapped Richards and Roberts around what do you think Warrington would have done?

So what your all saying is that Roberts is just not good against a taller player?

I agree with that.

What position did King play?

Centre, which was a good tactic for Warrington because as much as I hate to admit it - Briers can have a lethal offensive kicking game on his day which he did and put 3/4 fine cross-field balls up for King.

Correct, so where the bl**dy hell was Gleeson.

If you are suggesting they would have swapped King over as well that isn't as likely as you might like to think. It is not as easy to switch centres as it s a winger.

They may have tried to same tactic of kicking to Roberts wing (now on the other side of the pitch) but without King to challenge it may not have been as effective.

If the teams line up the same way this week and Roberts is targeted again and with the same sort of success what do you suggest Noble does? Shrug his shoulders and leave things as they are?

Dave

What I'm suggesting is that his centre who is marking King should be the fist in line to make the block, but they may have swapped centres, I guess we'll never know.

As King is not playing on Friday it may be irrelevant. To be fair Briers kicks were very accurate last week and were dropping between the centre and winger right on the try line.

Simple, hicks would have got a hatrick instead.

Dont let logic cloud the issue.

I agree and so sometimes the winger has to be able to deal with it and can't rely on the centre being there all the time. Swapping the wingers would have at least have given them something to think about but we stuck with plan A.

Dave

Correct. Roberts was up against 3 Wire players for the Anderson try and even has a go after the try was scored. The fans get on his back. With Ainscough they applaud and say 'he's only young' etc etc

The lad just can't win. In the first half Sir Sam Tomkins OBE MBE PMT TTFN threw an absolute shocker of a pass to Gleeson (well I think it was meant to go to him anyway

) but it flew past Gleese and BEHIND Roberts into touch. Cue cries of 'Bloody rubbish that Roberts, I hope we don't keep that useless bag of crap'

Second half and Sir Sam crosses for a try (granted it was forward a mile) but does Roberts get any praise for chasing the kick, keeping it in play and finding Sam? No. Would Shaun Ainscough? I think he probably would.



BTW - my mickey taking of Sam is not a shot at him but at how high a pedastal fans have put him on. I think Sam is a class act and will be the future of both Wigan and England/GB for years to come.

You make a very good point Conroy, with a small element of our fan base certain players are doomed no matter what they do or don't do.