I've never been a great Noble basher, I've criticised him when needed but still had belief in him as a coach.

Last night - despite some errors (all teams have errors!), I was actually pleased with the team. Expansive, hard working, options both down the middle and outside. This was all before halftime, where I believe the pressure was off for us and the players were relaxed, flowing and just played a bit of rugby. In the first half we were by far the better team.

Then half time came. Whatever Noble said, with the game so tight it was clearly "up your jumper" time, and we just went middle middle middle, drive drive drive, scoot scoot scoot. All that positive play went down the toilet.

So, despite plenty threads players slating and coach slating, anyone else have a similar inkling to my way of thinking after tonight? Although the team need to improve their execution and improve their match fitness, I'm confident with that team.

What I am not confident with is the dire tactics used. Tactics lost us that game last night - even with a couple of errors that cost us tries, we still could have won that game with better tactics.

Credit to Hull, they played in the second exactly how we played in the first.

i was thinking how well wigan do considering the choice of players noble has

True, but he signed most of them.

I would say that is a fair assessment of how the game happened. I thought that the Hull try in the first half should not have happened because in a play before the move that led to the try imo Hull should have been penalised for obstruction.

Like you say though in the 2nd half it was ball up jumper time, one out rugby and scoots giving us poor field position on the final kick. When we did get good field position most of the time we put in a poor kick or we dropped the ball.

In a 5 min spell we had 3 sets of 6 in a very good position. We dropped the ball on the 2nd play twice and then on the first play



Yes Noble needs to take the blame for the second half of a game we could have won if we played it like we played the first, but the some of the players need to look at themselves as well imo.

Wigan appear to have fallen in to the trap of signing average overseas players. From your overseas players in the squad id only want Richards, Smith and Feka. The rest are forgettable, and there are British players about who could do an equal job.

read on this board that Riddell is injured, so he can maybe be cut some slack, but i thought he was very poor last night, especially considering Berrigan had a quiet game by his standards.

you also looked to tire more quickly than Hull

This is a recurring theme across a number of threads and clearly will be a major issue if we don't get it sorted sharpish.

Riddell looks terrible , you`ve wasted your cash there !
On the whole last night was the classic game of 2 halfs. We muscled up in defence and repelled some strong attacking play from Wigan.

he picked up a knock early in the game, hence off after 15ish mins. I reckon he'll be reet when he gets match fit (whatever that means for him)

There seems to be little acknowledgement on here today that Hull FC may have played a good game and been good value for their win...

thats probably because we were in the lead, then gifted them a try by letting the ball bounce, and then refused to catch the ball when we were anywhere near their line.

hull did everything they needed to do to win (and deserved their win), but on this occasion, we helped to throw it away, rather than last week when we were never even in the game.

I would agree with that.

Hull FC just about deserved to take the spoils imo and in the 2nd half were the only team who were prepared to try things as opposed to 5 hits/scoots and a kick.

They did the little things right when it mattered and we were our own worst enemy. It was definitely a case of two points lost last night.

Hull fully deserved the win.

I said at half time that if we play like we did in the first, I'd have accepted defeat, but we didn't. As soon as Richards scored his try we shut up shop and reverted back to five drives and kick. Considering we were only 10-8 down for the last 10 minutes we didn't even look like getting back into the game.

Goulding really should have scored/set up two fantastic opportunites as well.

I didn't make the game what did he do? Was it one of him failure to pass or was it just good defending to keep him out?

How did he play last night?

It was good defending imo. He had a couple of 1 on 1 chances but the Hull defenders tackled him. I thought he had a good game. Played the majority of the match at wing (when Phelps went off) and full back (when Amos wanted a rest). I think he set up Bailey aswell but I couldn't see.

He did well, seemed dangerous and defended well BUT he made a couple of wrong decisions in the first and second halves that would have lead to tries.

In the first half whilst 20 yards away from the opposition try line he had a huge amount of space with Phelps outside him and covering defence coming his way. He presumed has pace would have got to the line first instead of feeding it to Phelps and the cover tackle took him into touch.

In the second half he was about the same distance out again and their defender basically had his feet planted just in front of the try line. Instead of using footwork and change of angle, he decided to use power and bounce off the defender which didn't work.

Don't get me wrong, he didn't play badly and he fully deserves his place next week but he should have done better in those situations. I'm sure he will have learned from both of them.

I very much hope so. I really rate Goulding and i really hope he gets a good run this season to learn and show us what he can do. He’s already on the same level as Phelps IMO.

I'm going to disagree.
He did play poorly, those were two match winning opportunities. He's not a first year apprentice anymore. I believe that either Phelps or a fit Karl Pryce would have scored both those tries.

He also dropped the ball from a high kick late in the game. I'm not saying drop him by the way, but if Phelps is fit it may be better to give Ainscough a go on the wing and Goulding to the bench.

And that is the reason Noble chooses Phelps over Goulding every time when possible.

How many chances does Goulding need? Everytime he plays we seem to be talking about him bombing trys.

Cant comment on them two chances but thats what goulding needs to work on to be a great player going for glory all the time

If goulding passed once in a while he'd be a very good and thats what a job is take a hit and suck the defence in to let the winger go