Goulding played his best ever game for Wigan tonight. That first try was excellent.

Yeah I agree, defensive question marks but as "Jimmy Birts" alluded to, his first try was a classy effort I felt. He took a poor pass and turned it into four points.

We also wouldn't hear the end of it if he wasn't rock solid in defence either - even if he did score 5. Would we?

The comments on Goulding in this thread are pretty balanced. It's a pity the same kind of reasoned comments and keeping things in perspective aren't applied to Ainscough.

The pair of them have a lot in common IMO by which I mean both have been players who have done well (very well in fact at times) but for some reason seem to attract an undue amount of flak from certain quarters of the fans.

There is another parallel as well. Both were victims of Noble's obsession with senior players IMO. Goulding got dropped after we lost to Leeds when he was in fact very good in that game two season ago and virtually never featured again that season. Ainscough as we know got dropped after scoring four tries and didn't feature again before getting injured either.

Our ex-coach got a lot of stick form me on both occasions and maybe that is what it was - some people had to make up excuses to defend Noble so both Ainscough and Goulding got whatever faults they have blown out of proportion just to defend Noble. Well that's my theory and I am sticking to it!

Dave

Fully agree.

I was saying at the ground you need players that can do a decent job in your squad. No one will remember Mike Bennett outside of St Helens, but he can count his medals now he's retired!

I had a discussion with my mate before the game about who should play left centre tonight. I thought Goulding and he thought Bailey........I'm pleased to say Goulding won that battle for me!

It was a huge opportunity for him tonight to show that he can play centre aswell as wing and to try and earn himself a good place within our squad for the rest of this year and beyond. His preformences have been very good in the past few weeks and he looks to be cementing himself a spot at Wigan for next year ahead of Pryce who seems more and more certain each week to be on his way out.

I thought Hansen left him exposed a couple of times.

I don't think DG did much wrong all night, certainly no more 'mistakes' than you expect to see in any game from a centre. He showed great pace, good hands when needed and took work off the forwards in the right areas. I'm pleased for him and would hope he's there or thereabouts next week.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bennett a few times through him visiting the school I used to work at. If there was ever a better advert for RL I am yet to see them. He was a solid, dependable player, much in the same mould as some of our current props (Coley and Prescott). It is a shame he had to retire(even if he was a Saint!).

I have to admit i've never been truly impressed with Goulding and was a little mystified when Ainscough went out on loan but it seems that they're grabbing their opportunities with both hands and added much needed competition to the squad. Missed the match last night so look forward to watching the first try on SLS tomorrow, my mate said it was a cracker.

Even if this passage of appearances is a cameo for DG, at least he's done enough to get ahead of the rest as the 3rd choice centre!

Was going to say the same about HH - he came out of the line twice and made a total hash of whatever he was trying to do. Fortunately FC bombed the chance the 2nd time.

Granted Goulding isn't the strongest in defence but with a gap inside him left by HH, and with him and Pat drifting towards the touchline as we'd expect he was always going to struggle through no fault of his own.

Disagree that it was HH

1st was clearly Sam who came flying out of the line leaving a gap that I think I could have gone through. Pat did try to position phelps to take the inside man so he could take the ball carrier, but he didn't

2nd I thought was Goulding but could be wrong - but they bombed it

Thought Horne played pretty well and was the one most likely to break our line

Thought Goulding had a good game tonight. Would like to see him keep his place next week and let carmount get fully fit. We have a short turn around to the leeds game after playing cas and then we have saints and Wakefield in 4 days. This is where the squad rotation will come into play and if we have a fully fit carmount for leeds after 2 weeks out then would prefer that. Goulding ha done litle wrong in the games he has played so should keep his place.