You mean pre 2009

who gives a sh@t FIOS!!!!!!!

Altered just for you. Noticed as well last weekend Warrington were playing Ratchford the Rat (check out the blog photo on here) at full back and trying to chime him into an attacking link. Please tell me they are not trying to adapt his playing style and tactics to copy Sam Tomkins.

Briers will never retire. When he's no longer good enough for Wolves, he'll probably move to a tier two team. Incidently, have you anybody lined up to replace Finch?

Brett Hodgson has been linking in the line for years alot long than Sam Tomkins.So maybe Wigan are telling Sam to copy Bretts style of play.

Yeah right. Players have done it for longer and more successfully than Hodgson has ever have and if Wigan are going to tell Tomkins to copy off anyone it is going to be the best and certainly not Hodgson. Maguire certainly did not come from Melbourne, see an aging and past it Hodgson and think that he was truely revolutionary and say to Tomkins I will move you to full back and you can copy Hodgson

Rads was a fullback that linked into the attacking line, all fullbacks do. Sam is not your run of the mill fullback who hits the line in a gap ala Hodgson etc etc, he comes into the line and creates space for himself or others, he isnt the final man on the end of a pass.

I was positive at the start of the season, many here were not. But i have been surprised by how good we have been, and how low others have slipped.

When Maguire came from Melbourne, Hodgson was Man of Steel, if he thought he was ageing and past it he probably kept his views to himself so as not to offend you guys about his views on the standard of competition he was now coaching in.

Tomkins is a different type of player with his own special attributes so the way he is used at fullback will be different from others, but the ideas of using a non-standard fullback at fullback is not new. I think fullback is probably the position on the field where you get most variety of different types of players being used there, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Fullback has the least amount of tackling and also when they join the line are not directly picked up by a man opposite so it's a way of introducing a shock weapon into the line and doing damage.

With us going back ten years there were brief experiments from Daryl Van de Velde and Steve Anderson of putting Briers at fullback, the idea being he would be fresh from not tackling and could chime into the line when he wanted and be an extra playmaker and hang back and do his long range kicking game from there, but it didn't work so both times it was soon ditched. But Van de Velde got some success out of sticking Allan Hunte there when we had Langer because many a time Langer would be close to the line and scuttling towards the outside then he'd whizz an inside ball to Hunte who would shoot through the middle at full pace and that was a try.

Ratchford is a slippery runner and probably the thought is he will be well used as a weapon from there rather than playing him stand off or centre but we will have to see, the jury is out on Ratchford IMO, when we signed Myler all the Salford fans told us Ratchford was the real talent not Myler and I quietly agreed with them so was pleased we got him but time will tell whether he goes on to be one of the best players in the league or is one of those that looked great as a young player and never kicked on. We signed Daryl Cardiss and Stuart Reardon who were both rated very highly in their early 20s and then tailed off.

That was a cracking post in February when you wrote it. Now ,it's all working out as you saw it then.(apart from Fielden). Congratulations.