Quote: Nogga "I'll judge us when we have Tomkins, Williams and O'loughlin back and firing. Smith is a massive scapegoat at the minute but his game is simply organising and getting the ball out to the 'flair players' (Williams and Tomkins). He's been playing with a backrower from the academy as his half-back partner for the last 4 weeks.
I also think Powells distribution from dummy-half is often slow and puts us on the back foot which gives us less space to move the ball out wide.'"
Smith is the scapegoat because he has been found out to be incapable of doing the things you say what is game is "Simply organising and getting the ball out to Flair players" Those things he doesn't do, is organisation is terrible with so many young lads living the dream he should be able to boss and move round them round the field but he don't. Yeh agree not helped that he been playing with a academy backrower at half back last 4 weeks but whose fault is that.......Shane Wane! we have a five-eight playing hooker in Powell and numerous number 9's in the academy waiting for the chance. Remember Shane Wane said that we don't need to sign players and we will only consider signing players who are better than we have in the system. Obviously they are not because they are not playing and how many times does a young lad sit on the bench and not be used.
With regards to Powell "slow" distribution this is because he is not a hooker! Why did Shane Wane decide to play Williams off the bench as a hooker replacement? He came back from a bad back apparently so put him behind the play the ball bending over majority of the game......mind boggles.
With regards to our attack the issue is that Shane Wane is a forwards coach (which is why we sign numerous forwards) so we are playing structured / boring attack which in big games can at times not come off (look at the tries scored last night by Warrington compared to us ), which at the moment due to injuries doesn't look like coming off in any games.
The skill level in the team is very low, we have two centres in Gelling and Sarge who cant pass, Gelling may set up tries but he passes the ball like a basketball player in tight places when it comes to a simple pass it goes wrong. Who is Wigan attack coach...........? because the one set move we have as not changed since Madge brought it in 2010.