Yeah same, some good signs but nothing to get carried away with just yet.

But not defensively, lets wait and see what happens when we play better opposition and he's put under pressure from kicks both 'bombs' and behind him ( he seems to struggle when he has to turn and chase a ball ). I noticed on Friday when he jumped for a ball his technic was similar to Hampo's, it looks like he's been doing some work with him on this area and there's some improvement, its only game 1, long way to go, I hope he proves me wrong, good luck to him.

I said his positives outweigh his negatives, Meaning the few problems he has defensively are Far outweighed by his positive attacking that he brings to the team.
As for Wellens being better defensively, I suggest that's because he was never tested as much due to being Top dogs for the last 4/5 years?
If he had played for us for the last 4/5 years he would have been ridiculed!

Problem is, when people start "Wanting him to Fail" to try to prove their point?
It's a bit like the Riddell (Over Higham) problems or the Roberts (Over Ainscough) situation. People wanted to find problems were there weren't any just to try & Prove a point.

End of the day, Maguire obviously sees something in him otherwise He wouldn't have allowed IL to resign him on the money he's on?
If anyone thinks there's a player at this club that Maguire isn't happy with then they should have listened to his & IL's comments at the Fans Forum on Wednesday.
Maguire didn't want any of the 5 props IL went over to sign in May(ish) last year so IL didn't go for any of them, surely Maguire would have had his input into the resigning of Phelps,Coley etc as well?

personally i thought the best thing about Eric Pollard not signing those props was the fact that we have an owner who was willing to listen to the coach.
That might seem like common sence but... Thats not always been the case.

I was very pleased with the lads performance and they all looked fit and well conditioned (who the hell was that in Feka's hat ?).
Crusaders were poor and it wasn't a good pointer for the season I agree but its still far better than the start of last season.
I thought Gleeson was busy and did well, Deacon worked hard and made a couple of nice kicks and my MOM was Amos Roberts, I thought he had a real good game.
I'm a happy little Barrow Warrior.

This argument didn't seem to cut much mustard when applied to Ainscough last season.



Indeed. Ainscough's "problems" in defense were blown out of all proportion to justify keeping the equally "(defensively) bad" Roberts in the side and people were saying "I told you so" about Riddell being vastly better than Higham when most people could see the reason he passed the ball rather than made more than one dummy half run a game was because he was too fat







They aren't going to slag players off in public. That doesn't mean they don't have an agenda to replace certain players as what happened to Higham clearly shows. IMO Phelps has this season to earn himself a new deal and he isn't going to automatically get a new contract. His position is a key one and if a top class full back was available for 2011 I reckon it's a no brainer to move for him. Years ago we had a very good scrum half in Mick Ford but it didn't stop us going for Andy Gregory and that sort of ruthless recruitment is what's needed throughout the side when players contracts are up. If the players know that then they will know they have to be good enough to gets contracts renewed not just the current best option we have in their position.

Dave

Most of the re-signings have been done on one year deals.
There must be half the squad ooc 2010.
There was also IL's comments about MM having the knowledge of the NRL, implying he hadn't.
I've always had the impression that MM is taking a year to look at what we've got. After that he will bring in who he wants and as was also said we at present under current quotas can sign an Aussie and two Islanders.
If Faeka & Fielden are re-signed they will be on IL style contracts rather than Mo's deals as they are now. That could leave enough SC money for some quality signings.

After Friday we need to see a few games before making judgements on players' performances.
Good hit out but some wern't out long enough to judge. The subs were all over the place with Joel our only 80 min forward. MM even brought Lockers off and that never happens.
After half time I think MM was treating it as a trial game as far as substitutions go.

What a boring thread this is, What happened to all the moaning after games?

We're saving that for after the HKR game

You don't have Nobby anymore

It's tough to judge so soon but you can tell both are playing for new deals already.

I'd say at the moment Fielden is the more likely of the 2 to get one. I don't judge that on one game by the way but more the way we look to be playing the game. It looks like Maguire wants a side thats full committed in everything it does and he wants a side that does the basics well. It looks like so far the basics he's really got us cranked up on is our line speed in defence and our general kick chase. I'd say neither of these are Feka's strong points but he obviously brings other things guys like Fielden and Coley can't.

I wouldn't be suprised if mid way through the season he gets Lenagan to sign up a prop for 2011 and says to Coley, Fielden and Feka "theres 2 new contracts up for grabs so prove to me your worth one". That would get those guys running through brick walls

Not comapring like for like are we though Dave? IMO last year we had a better Option on the Right Wing than Ainscough in Amos Roberts, Yes he did have a few defensive problems but absolutely nowhere near as many as Ainscouhg. As for attacking ability then unless you compare how many tries on the Right Wing Ainscough scored to Roberts on the Right Wing then it's a waste of time!

As for Phelps, have we got a better option, and being quite serious here, if we have then let's play him there. But not if it weakens other areas of the team!
If MM thinks that Richards is a better FB for the team & Brings Ainscough onto the Left wing then fair enough.
But he hasn't has he? So I suggest he thinks Richards is a better left winger, Roberts a better right winger and Phelps as the Best option we have at Full back?
Do you agree it must be MM's thinking or not? Or is he just doing that to spite you?



Roberts is Far Superior defensively than Ainscough, if you can't see that then fair enough. I agree Ainscoughs defensive problems were blown out of proportion but just remember it was the fans that did that Not Nobby!
As for Piggy, He had a pretty good 1st 30, but was poor in the last 20 when he came back on!
His contribution in the 2 x pre season games at Wakey/Wire meant he was the right person to start the game on Friday, do you not agree? Sorry, only category 1's may have an opinion on that!


He is,was and always will be a better starting 9 than a certain Scarf Waving Headless chicken who's playing 2nd fiddle to a number 7 at Wire after they figured out what he can & more importantly "CAN'T" do.
Guess what though? MM picked him so BN couldn't have been too far off the mark!



Don't disagree, never have on this subject.
I was only saying that MM must have thpught the Phelps could do a Good job for us there at least in the short term otherwise I don't think he would have let IL agree to the new contract see as he vetoed the propsed move for 1 of the new props!
If a Far superior & worthwhile option £for£ becomes available for 2011 and we can get him then Yep! I'm all for that!

As for the Andy Gregory scenario, My only slight disagreement is that we can't go and unsettle another FB and offer him far more significant wages to attract him to the club like we did back then can we?

Unlike Myler in the Salford/Warrington move ????, IL hinted that money would be available next year, what positions get strengthened, is, as you say, up to MM.

I see what you're getting at but I think there would be uproar from all quarters if Feka was released in favour of Andy Coley.

As far as Fielden goes, another factor as well as his performance will be whether he actually wants to stay. It wouldn't surprise me if he's already planning a return to Yorkshire.

Oh there's no doubt that there's the odd opportunity, but nowhere near the extent of say15/20 years ago!

Plus, we can't unsettle them based on how much we can pay them as that's restrained by Salary Cap.
We may be only able to use this method once every couple of years?

I got the impression from what IL said at the forum it would be a 'hairy ar@ed forward' we would be looking at first when money became available.

Well we'll see, I remember both a certain M Bamford and a certain A Murphy wanting 'hairy ar@ed forwards' and we went and signed Gill and West respectively, which worked out well. Unlike them days however, i'm confident we'll get the player that MM wants whatever he is. I do hope however that we adopt the same approach of getting the right player when he's available (and can be fitted under the cap), not when we're only in dire need, as with the salary cap the day's of throwing out big money to get a quick deal are well and truly gone.

i dont want to sound like a harbinger of doom, but i think there may be a few people going OTT here.
yes we won comfortably, but against a VERY poor team still hungover from the week before

good defence
good discipline (much improved)
but for long periods of time we didnt look creative (dominated the 2nd half territory and possession and only scored 3)
very few offloads
looked dependent on kicks to score
feka - sorry "new slimmed down 80 minute" feka - walked off the field after the same old 10-15 min stints

a nice start to the year, and a LOT better than last year, but lets just wait to judge how good we are yet.
this year is going to be exceptionally competitive with the top 2 being dragged further back into the pack.
lets judge it after week 3. if we're top, then i will be very happy about the future.

Who the hell would want him on for the 80? Also, the thing is if he does more than the 15...wouldn't that mean all the other props were doing an average of the same as well? (2 lots of say 20 would be an equally split workload), which sort of defeats the idea of a quick impact designed to shift momentum in our direction. I thought the whole idea of better fitness for Feka was so we wouldn't have the embarassment on Monas (or equivalent) ripping us up again.

If Phelps attack is worth more than his few errors in defence the same definitely was true of Ainsough last season but some people were having none of it. I am simply drawing the obvious parallel.

And Roberts defensive problems were easily as bad if not worse than Ainscoughs. Roberts made some absolute howlers and you saying they were nowhere near as many as Ainscough just perpetuates the myth Ainscough was some sort of defensive liability IMO which he wasn't.

It's clear the "his attacking skill outweigh his defensive liabilities" is only applies when it suits

and given you were talking about a full back I'd have thought it even more applicable to a winger.



This excuse he was on the wrong wing ignores the fact when he did get clean ball he failed to make good use of it far too often. Attacking ability is something you form an opinion about by more than just tries scored. Ainscough was dangerous when he got the ball whereas Roberts would often fail to back himself. He looks much better this year already but you can't rewrite history.



What are you on about now? I said we should not keep Phelps when his contract expires just because he is the best option we have. In other words just because he is the best option we have now does not mean that will be true come 2011 if better fullbacks are available to sign. I was not suggesting we had a better option at this point in time and if you read my post properly you will have read that I said Phelps has this season IMO to make a case for getting a new deal as our full back.

And saying Roberts defence is "far superior" is IMO ridiculous. First off and yet again Ainscough's defence was not a big problem. It got blown out of all proportion yet Roberts made mistakes that cost tries and at Wire was absolute rubbish. Defence last season was not Roberts strong point. In fact he didn't have a great deal going for him which is why there was plenty of debate about him.



I was not on about how he played on Friday but was simply making the point he was popular with some because he wasn't Higham despite looking like a lump of lard at times and in context that was just another example of opinions being biased despite what occurred on the pitch. If you want an opinion on his game last week he was nothing special IMO and he came up with a few errors e.g. managed to get the ball stolen off him three yards out and when he came on for his second spell passed the ball to the grass! It's early days but Roberts looks a different player. Riddell doesn't but it's only one game so we will have to see how he goes as the season goes on.



No but it is not impossible to have one or more what you might call star players in a SL side despite the cap. Other teams are able to sign these players and when the shackles we all think have held our recruitment of such plays back are off come 2011 it's going to be a big test of how persuasive IL is to get players to come here. In Mo's days there was always the cheque book but Leeds has an equally large one so it wasn't all just down to money why players chose to come here. IL needs to make the case even more so because the wages on offer will be similar to other clubs.

Will he replace the popular and enthusiastic Phelps like we ended up with Andy Gregory for Ford? Don't know but it's the sort of thing he needs to do if Phelps proves not to be the answer and only gets the no. 1 shirt because he is the best option we have in the side because that won't make him good enough ultimately.

Dave

We have some superb young players coming through or who are not long established in the first team and the first priority next year should be to look after them ; we need to keep a core of home grown youngsters and build the team around that. We only need then a sprinkling of signings from outside the club and the Wigan name and set up will always allow us to compete with any club for top players.

And if IL, MM or SW are reading this - a message for you - GET MOSSOP SIGNED UP!

I wish somebody had asked Lenagan the question about Mossop's future at the fans forum. I didn't give it a thought on the night and he probably would have shed some light on how things are shaping up.

A 4 or 5 year deal should be on the table 'NOW' imo because the lad looks class.

Your right it certainly needs addressing.

Of course we don't know what the club already have in place, he could be in the process of sorting out a new deal with Wigan this week and we wouldn't know.

Here's hoping the club are either preparing a new contract for him, or have already done so.

We better had be in talks because i'm sure clubs like Leeds and Warrington will be watching the situation with interest.

Lenagan's not daft. He'll have held talks with Mossop already I'm sure and he'll offer him a good deal.

Be all up to whether or not he wants to stay or if he has his eye on somewhere else. No reason to think he's not happy at Wigan.