Quote jonh="jonh"Quote jonh="jonh"I think the 13 you are talking about is no more at the moment to be honest.
Most teams run with middles at 13 now rather than the natural ball playing 13, with 1 taking over the play maker role.
We have been very spoilt at Wigan with great ball handling 13s up until the retirement of SOL who could do the tough stuff and also be creative.
I don’t think there is one in the game now like them, certainly not in SL.
The game has changed, maybe not for the better in that regard. I certainly don’t see Smithies suddenly developing a creative game.
Ellis at St George had a similar style to Graham when he played 13 in that he took the ball deep into the line and then found his halves with out the back plays. Not see much of that yet at Wigan from him though.'"
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I wouldn't disagree with vast majority of that Jon.
What I would say is that only a few maybe a couple of years ago I would state that Offiah wouldn't get a game in the expectations of coaches what represents a good winger. Today we have French and Marshall who are both small but flyers. Every team in SL is now looking for fast wingers rather than 17 stone metre makers. I am pretty confident that "old fashioned" loose forwards will come back into vogue but that will only occur if at scholarship levels coaches look to develop players with good ball handling skills together with a good passing game.
My concern with our pack next year is that we are undercooked in the backrow particularly the second row.
Isa, Farrell and Shorrocks are all small for a second row forward and for me we cannot afford to have more than one of these guys on the field at anyone time if we are to beat Saints in the majority matches.
Saints are the the acid test and when they beat us it is invariably because of the intensity and strength of their pack that outweighs our firepower in the backs.On paper our pack has deteriorated albeit I never thought that a Farrell/Bateman combination would give us long term success.
If Farrell gets injured for a lengthy spell I think that our season could be over. The majority of potential backrow cover is too inexperienced and too small, It was the same last season but at least we had a couple of sizable guys coming through the ranks in Nicholson and McDonnell that gave us hope of addressing the size issue. Nsemba could be the one to come through but it is asking a lot of a young guy with little or no experience in the first team.
The backrow excluding Farrell could be Isa/KPP/Smithies. Don't think we'd do particularly well with that as a starting backrow.
We have on paper resolved our centre issue and I think that Cooper for a full season is a major step up.
Having Tommy in the coaching setup I am hoping will improve the team a lot more than some people think.
I'm not disappointed that Bateman has gone just a little peeved how he strung the club on which has put us in this position.
