I didn't say he did but I did not imagine Noble virtually always ending on a negative when discussing AInscough in the press. It is as though it never crossed his mind just offering him some unqualified praise for once might be a good idea for his confidence.

As to being dropped he was dropped when Noble could play all his senior players.



We already know the andwer to that. He was wrong to drop Ainscough when Ainscough was on form IMO. If Noble picked on form he would have kept him in the side but we know from Nobles own words that Noble will always give his senior players the benefit of the doubt. That is the way he coaches and it is different from how Maguire coaches we are told. So if Roberts gets the nod it is because he will be on form in 2010 not because Noble was right to pick him in 2009 when he wasn't (on form) .



The only disappointment will be if Maquire "does a Noble" and ignores form. If he picks on form it does not matter who he picks. The criticism Noble got wasn't because he didn't pick Ainscough or whoever but because he kept persisting with out of form players and his "pick the first 17" philosophy meant there was no competition for places. Hopefully all that is a thing of the past but even if it is I don't think anyone is naive enough to think it guarantees Ainscough an extended run in the side.

For all we know Noble could have already ruined him

Dave

So would I. It's a fresh start for all players under a new management team. I can't fault the team we have named.

Got to say I agree with you on this one Dave.

Ainscough would of really kicked on last season had we left him in IMO. This season though I am happy to have Roberts as first choice, he was good at the back end of last season.

I'm just glad that we've got them both.

I always thought the 'Ainscough or Roberts' issue was being overstated - to me, Roberts was brought in partly as cover for full-back, Mathers clearly not having what we'd hoped for. He wasn't brought in to replace Ainscough. But there's no denying, under Noble you eventually got the feeling that Ainscough wasn't going to get a fair crack of the whip.

Hopefully that's now in the past, and selections will be made on merit. What could be better for Wigan than having two pretty decent wingers jockeying for a first team shirt?

At least we are well covered in every position for this season. The main concern for most people was that it may knock Ainscough's confidence and he might not find that kind of form again.

yes i agree Shaun Ainscough SHOULD be the first chioce winger along with RICHARDS IF MAGUIRE thinks A ROberts is better then he must be

I think it's a pointless discussion. At the end of the day, as a team we'd lost 1 more match than we'd won before Ainscough missed his first game - his last match before missing a game being our abject tonking received away at Cat. We as a set of fans were really down in the dumps (some of the most miserable i've seen people for ages), clearly something needed to change in the team selection, tactics and performances. Ainscough didn't play in the next game we won at home to Celtic, but then played and scored 4 in that away win at Wakey - a game in which Cam Phelps also scored 2 on the same side of the field playing centre (and Ainscough got outjumped twice by Damien Blanch defending kicks). Clearly there were some tough decisions to be made regards selection.

We went on to perform better for the rest of the season once Phelps started to bed in at fullback, and Richards continued the trend shown by Ainscough of us scoring on the left wing. Additionally, our right side try haul improved no end once Hock was no longer in the team (both from Roberts and from the right side centre, having been Bailey, Pryce, Goulding, and Gleeson as right centre in consecutive games all centres scoring and Roberts scoring in 3 from 4 games).

We will never know how Ainscough would have performed if selected on the right Wing so it's a stupid discussion, however all our patterns of play would suggest that even if Jesus Christ was on our right wing he'd have scored less than if he'd been on our left hand side so it then becomes a little harder to overlook any negatives that may or may not have been outweighed by scoring rate previously. We do know that Ainscough scored plenty on the left wing, and so did Richards when played there so debate all day about whether we should have dropped Richards or moved Richards away from a Wing he's been settled on for a number of years.

Could we have performed better if Ainscough had still been included? We'll never know. Did we perform better after he was no longer in the team and things had been jiggled around - Yes that's a fact (although i'm not saying that's cut and dried as anything to do with Ainscough).

There's 3 debates on here that i'm well and truly sick and tired of:

1) Ainscough v Roberts (though there was never a fair comparison)
2) Piggy v McIlorum v Mickey Higham
3) Fielden is e and we need a forward that's going to go round ting people.

Go back and watch last seasons games again in the cold light of day, and you'll find that a large part of our lost games were down to:

a) Crap kicking option on the last tackle (I don't see any criticisms of Tommy or Sam going on)
b) Dropped ball (and there's so many equally guilty here it's not even funny)

Points a) and b) largely cost us success rather than anything that could be talked about in debates 1) 2) and 3)

I think George Carmont deserves a massive round of applause for the success of both Ainscough and Richards.

That's a very very true statement, as are some lovely balls thrown by Tim Smith, Tommy, Sean O'Loughlin, Pat Richards, etc, etc etc. It's a team sport.

Edited for accuracy!

I was going to say the same but some get very upset if they think you dont believe there a RL expert

Cruncher, how many Samoans do you see in or around Wigan on a daily basis?