Re: Our "forwards" : Fri Jul 03, 2015 10:42 pm  

Cold Comfort Farm indeed. Even if we beat Leeds, now it'll look like papering over the cracks.

Re: Our "forwards" : Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:10 am  

It's two weeks now since the Salford debacle and I'm finally past the shock it gave me.
The current pack are not good enough full stop but they still have to show some pride.
We need to get back to our full on aggression and take no shoite.
Against Wire there were 3 incidents where our forwards should have taken the initiative but did nothing.
Sims had a dig at Williams. He should have got cleaned out.
Sims was basically taking the urine out of Flower before forming a scrum and Flower did nothing. Flower has made his bed but he owes it to himself and the team to get back to a very aggressive type if forward. Flower should have sorted Sims out in next set of six. If he can't do this anymore then pay him off.
Patrick got involved in some pushing and shoving believing he had been fouled or whatever. He should have taken on the nearest opponent to him and had a go at sorting him out.

It seems our forwards can't cross a line either subconsciously or it's the party since the GF.
It is now 9 months since Flower got his deserved punishment it is time to move on.
SW should cease all interviews for the rest of the season and any other marketing tripe that the club has to do these days. KR can do that.
We are viewed quite rightly as pussies at the moment SW has got to get us back to mongrels. It may not work but at least as fans we can get some pride back knowing that the forwards are at least giving concerted effort.
MM to do a full 80 minutes. If this is not possible due to an injury if possible put SOL there while he has a breather. Powell, Williams et al are not capable of continuing an aggressive approach. I actually prefer Bateman to cover the 9 but from what I hear he may not be available for sometime.
I never thought I would say this but let's get back to 4 forwards on the bench and accept that with the present pack we do need that backup rather than wasting a place with Powell who to be fair to him just isn't capable of covering MM.

Nothing new or earth shattering but as a minimum may just spark a bit of pride that the fans badly need at the moment.

Re: Our "forwards" : Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:20 am  

Our forwards were summed up completely on Thursday night when two minutes into the second half, Williams had a tap restart. He turned around to see no forwards wanting to take the ball in and had to run the ball in himself, to which he got hit hard and then a couple of punches from Ashton Sims.

The most annoying thing is, I fully expect them to turn it on against Leeds at home next week. Which makes the loss, and our overall away form, so more frustrating.

Re: Our "forwards" : Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:53 am  

Tatts wrote:

Our forwards were summed up completely on Thursday night when two minutes into the second half, Williams had a tap restart. He turned around to see no forwards wanting to take the ball in and had to run the ball in himself, to which he got hit hard and then a couple of punches from Ashton Sims.

The most annoying thing is, I fully expect them to turn it on against Leeds at home next week. Which makes the loss, and our overall away form, so more frustrating.

Our season hit rock bottom at that point. I nearly walked out of the ground in disgust.

Re: Our "forwards" : Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:03 am  

Itchy Arsenal wrote:

It's two weeks now since the Salford debacle and I'm finally past the shock it gave me.
The current pack are not good enough full stop but they still have to show some pride.
We need to get back to our full on aggression and take no shoite.
Against Wire there were 3 incidents where our forwards should have taken the initiative but did nothing.
Sims had a dig at Williams. He should have got cleaned out.
Sims was basically taking the urine out of Flower before forming a scrum and Flower did nothing. Flower has made his bed but he owes it to himself and the team to get back to a very aggressive type if forward. Flower should have sorted Sims out in next set of six. If he can't do this anymore then pay him off.
Patrick got involved in some pushing and shoving believing he had been fouled or whatever. He should have taken on the nearest opponent to him and had a go at sorting him out.

It seems our forwards can't cross a line either subconsciously or it's the party since the GF.
It is now 9 months since Flower got his deserved punishment it is time to move on.
SW should cease all interviews for the rest of the season and any other marketing tripe that the club has to do these days. KR can do that.
We are viewed quite rightly as pussies at the moment SW has got to get us back to mongrels. It may not work but at least as fans we can get some pride back knowing that the forwards are at least giving concerted effort.
MM to do a full 80 minutes. If this is not possible due to an injury if possible put SOL there while he has a breather. Powell, Williams et al are not capable of continuing an aggressive approach. I actually prefer Bateman to cover the 9 but from what I hear he may not be available for sometime.
I never thought I would say this but let's get back to 4 forwards on the bench and accept that with the present pack we do need that backup rather than wasting a place with Powell who to be fair to him just isn't capable of covering MM.

Nothing new or earth shattering but as a minimum may just spark a bit of pride that the fans badly need at the moment.

We were poor against Salford, but surely Thursday was another world of bad? We hardly even got near their line to threaten it at all. On the few occasions we did, it was mostly down to some good kicks from Matty Smith. Certainly not, needless to say, from any go-forward from our pack.

Agree that Taylor was (and probably even still is) better than anything we have on offer at the moment.

I feel sorry for Williams. Seems to me that his trajectory this season has been: started off very shakey and nervous, but grew in confidence and was starting to really show his worth, but then the rest of the team seems to turn to ratshoite around him, and the lad is floundering a little again. And then, to add injury to insult, along comes Ashton Sims, puts in a couple of cheap shots, receives no sanction in return...

[Fantastic Mr Catpiss]

Re: Our "forwards" : Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:54 am  

He probably will do, and rightly so, no need for that, its crossing the line.


Speaking of which who was it that took Harrison's knee out?

Re: Our "forwards" : Sat Jul 04, 2015 12:08 pm  

I actually was a bit embarrassed for out lads getting knocked about by Simms. I expected much more from him this season and I don't think he played all that well on Thursday but what he did do was bully out lads all over the park, especially Crosby.

I personally don't mind those tactics of roughhousing it's part of a Props job. I think maybe Wigan fans don't like it as we don't have anyone to dominate the opposition in that way anymore.

Re: Our "forwards" : Sat Jul 04, 2015 12:41 pm  

jonh wrote:

I actually was a bit embarrassed for out lads getting knocked about by Simms. I expected much more from him this season and I don't think he played all that well on Thursday but what he did do was bully out lads all over the park, especially Crosby.

I personally don't mind those tactics of roughhousing it's part of a Props job. I think maybe Wigan fans don't like it as we don't have anyone to dominate the opposition in that way anymore.

We possibly don't have the individuals in the prop department (Micky Mac and Bateman are ultra aggressive though) but as a collective we used to bully the likes of Saints all over the place. We'd also take it to Wire and last year at Magic we terrorised Leeds and had them rattled.

Fast forward to this year with a similar set of props and they're serving up that! Why? It makes me think there are some issues behind the scenes.

Re: Our "forwards" : Sat Jul 04, 2015 12:45 pm  

I was thinking about this complete lack of drive in our props this season due partly to the fact that they are told that they do not have to take the ball up as much in their own and their main job is in the opponents half and in defence.

This made me start thinking when did Wigan have a props that we were comfortable with, I came to the conclusion it was the 2011 season.

At Wembley in August that season we went with Coley, Lima, Mossop and Prescott at prop. Coley in his last 2/3 years at Wigan had developed into a very good prop, Lima was a prop who would take it up all day, Mossop was talked about as being Wigan's senior prop for the next 10 seasons (whatever happened) and Prescott was another who used to make great yards especially clearing his own twenty. Prescott had the potential to go on to be a great prop and there was no better sight than seeing him take the ball up with a bandaged forehead seeping blood (it seemed to happen every week), sadly his future as a R/L player was to come to a close early in his career due to a serious injurey
All different in their own way but all with the desire not to shirk any work when confronted with it.

I know they did the double a couple of seasons later but in my eyes the props that season did not match up to the 2011 season.

Re: Our "forwards" : Sat Jul 04, 2015 1:38 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

We possibly don't have the individuals in the prop department (Micky Mac and Bateman are ultra aggressive though) but as a collective we used to bully the likes of Saints all over the place. We'd also take it to Wire and last year at Magic we terrorised Leeds and had them rattled.

Fast forward to this year with a similar set of props and they're serving up that! Why? It makes me think there are some issues behind the scenes.

There is an issue behind the scenes but it should not be affecting the available players.
The news if I'm correct will be exceptionally poor news but could be worse if the results are actually across the entire club rather than an individual.
They could use it as an excuse but that would be poor attitude and that is something that SW is paid to sort out.
SW and KR are paid top money they just have to work harder over the next few months and pull things together. I'm not expecting anything spectacular just some pride.
This is probably make or brake for SW in the next few weeks therefore, I am expecting him to come out fighting rather than skulking around. That's easy for me to say but if he wants to remain head coach he needs to approach this head on. I personally wish him well I just hope he is up to it and that somewhere our forwards have got some bottle.