Quote: Alex BP' "What are your thoughts on Alker? I've enjoyed seeing him play over his career but seems generally tired. His distribution from acting half back was very poor and there wasn't a hint of his usual running game.
Is he past it?'"
Alker is suffering from many years of injuries and from spending a career defending. He has a lot of very obvious offensive weaknesses but that's as a result of never being able to develop his skills due to defensive comments. Whilst I think it's great Adamson is putting in a big effort in defence I worry he will end up the same as Alker ... a promising player limited by having to carry a team.
This should be the last year at Salford for Alker for me, he is clearly struggling. The sooner Myler is ready to take over the captaincy the better.
Quote: Alex BP' "I thought defensively we weren't as bad as the scoreline suggested and the effort was definitely there for a most of the match. We just didn't help ourselves with kicking out on the full twice and giving away a number of penalties.'"
I'd disagree; I thought we were very poor defensively. We didn't move up anywhere near quick enough and the only time we got even remotely close to their kicker was when Jewitt cleaned out Tomkins. That said there was no lack of effort.
Quote: Alex BP' "The same ref that ruled out a nailed on try for McIlorum with the scores at 16-6? Worst call i've literally even seen.'"
Any decision against Wigan is the worst decision ever ever ever in the history of sport, humanity, space and time blah blah blah ...
Quote: Alex BP' "Wigan didn't stop Myler, he hid out on the wing for most of the game. All Wigans tries came down the side of the field where Myler was "defending"
The real deal, Sam Tomkins was there for you all to see last night, I'll bet Talau was sick of the site of him.'"
Rubbish. Myler was quiet because his forwards didn't build any sort of a platform him. Conversely Tomkins had a real platform to work from but he was very predictable. I set my watch by the cut out ball on the right hand in the first half. He's only 18 (or whatever) though so I don't want to sound too critical.
My points:
* I've only seem about half our games this year but I remain underwhelmed by Robbie Paul's contribution on the pitch.
* Mark Henry is not a winger and is being stifled out there.
* Wilshere's effort on Hock for the first try was terrible. He needs to learn to put his body on the line once in a while.
* Both sides are very very average and last night doesn't change the fact that Saints will win the trophy this year. However given that Wigan spend half a million more than us a year we showed well.
* Halibut or whatever his name is was awful. He needs to re-read the definition of a knock-on (four occasions when he called that wrong, three for us one for Wigan), needs to remember to put his hand up to signal the fifth (!) and to make a decision and stick to it (he called a forward pass early on after having waved play-on and then his linesman signalled).