As I said in a previous post, Brad Drew targetted Smith and Phelps in the defensive line on our right side.

The biggest probelm we have is that Smith is out of position at 6. The lads a scrum half not a stand off.

Yes in some cases it would not matter as you get players who can play both. Tim Smith however is not one of these players he is a classic 7.

Tommy is the more versatile of the two and should play at stand off even though his best position is definatly 9.

As the previous poster stated Smith is a 7

This may sound Irish but I would be tempted to bring Smith closer in re defence and put Lockers inside the right centre. Out wide is where you are often forced to defend 1 v 1 but closer to the action Smith would have other defenders to help him.

there isnt much difference at wigan if you play scrum half or stand off, they just split the field smith operates the right and lulu the left its only on 4th that they link up

tommy should move up to 9 and bring sam on but then i think where very lightweight in defence

In terms of defence what I cannot fathom is why Noble does not adjust his defence to fit the team. We have a big set of forwards and reasonably fast backs. Surely, an umbrella defence with the backs moving up quickly to force the opposition back into our forwards is a better bet than our sliding defence.

I'm not turning this into another anti Noble thread. If you want to look at how me and others rate Noble and the problems i have with his management then look on the anti Noble thread.

Karl Pryce to 7

I think he should start off with Tommy, put riddell on the bench, then have smith at SH, Lockers at SO and have J Tomkins starting at loose... That way it'll give Riddell time to read the game from the bench, he can come on, see where the weak areas are in Hull's defence and exploit em.

Not again and so I take it you expect McIllorum to miss out of the 17?

If so and if Coley plays that will mean the only change will have been the forced change of Mathers.

Unless if course he puts Prescott in instead of O'Caroll

Dave

Unfortunately, yeah.

Tommy playing at hooker is too good of an attacking oppotunity to miss out on.

On the other hand, we do need stability at 6 and 7.

It's a big headache for Noble.

Worrying though if a side is defensively weak on the outside?

When Noble voiced comments about certain players having thier own agenda on the radio...he then stated he would have to make sure he picked the " right team " to play hull ....seems much the same to me.

Sorry mate but that was round 17 and if you're not up to it now then you haven't got much time left to put things right lol

This squad sums up the whole problem with Wigan under Noble.

No matter how badly they play (and last Sunday was as bad as possible surely), the vast majority of them know they'll NEVER get dropped with this man in charge. No pressure for places at all.

Sam Tomkins must wonder what the hell he has to do to get a chance.