As I was saying to a few of my Wigan mates last night, you can see natural talent straight away. Sam Tompkins has got it and he's going to be a very good player, I think. In fact, he's already pretty good.

We've got a great new batch of quality young players coming through in SL. Burgess, Westerman, Owen, Shenton, Eastmond, Wheeler, Clough, Graham, Roby, Myler, Tompkins, Ainscough, Watkins, Moore. The list goes on.

The young talent getting a chance at the minute in the game looks very exciting and finally gives us abit of optimisim for the future.

The likes of Shenton, Myler, Westerman, J Tomkins and Scott Moore have got a real chance of playing for England at the end of this season aslong as they keep their form.

I hope he keeps this up and wigan can keep hold of him, the RFL should make a stance with him like they did with Cunningham, pay part of his salary to keep him in RL. Our game needs young stars like him.
I know i'm a saints fan but i really think a strong Wigan/Saints/Leeds and Hull is important if not essential to rugby league in this country.

Hate to say I told you so.

The majority of people were backing Tim Smith to start against Bradford rlhttps://forums.rlfans.com/viewtopic.php?t

I dont understand the logic of wanting to change the team after last nights performance???

For the first time in years we looked to be playing as a TEAM, and a damn good one at that. Forget that Bradford were poor, look at the fact that no-one in the whole 17 had a bad performance and all of them were looking for work/showing team spirit.

We even had dummy runner/second phase/support play. I for one would love to see us try that same 17 against Leeds, for 2 reasons, one because they are the best in the league and a good test, and 2 because we can then see if last nights performance was a one off or whether Noble has finally found the winning (or atleast a quality) combination.
If we go changing the team round there will always be that "what if" feeling of whether lastnights performance was a one off.

I would care if we got 50 points put past us against Leeds as long as when we had the ball we throw it around and show some exciting plays again.

Agreed. Rugby League doesn't do enough to protect itself. If it keeps taking the 'everything will look after itself' stance it seems to favour at the moment, the one thing we can guarentee is that everything won't look after itself for too much longer!

x3

He was poor last night.

i wouldnt of called him poor, he was solid in defence and when he had the ball he tried to create, leeds did not let us do anything last night and sam will learn from that! I was delighted he played last night because these young lads need to be played in big games, imagine how sam feels this morning? played against leeds at headingley. the kid certainly does not look out of place in the super league.

I thought it was a great learning curve for Sam and it showed that he can meet the physical demands to plat against the toughest and hardest Super League teams.

Been reading this forum for a while, and here are my thoughts on this thread. I do agree that he is a great player and definitely has a great future in the game, but i think a lot of Wigan fans are expecting him to be a ready made replacement for Trent Barret. I think some of the fans need to take the pressure off him and let him progress to be the great player he can be in the future.

Disagree, he could not get involved in the game, but do not think he was poor.

Not a lot a half can do if the forwards don't lay the platform.

Did his share of work in the match though.

If Nobby decides to drop him on the basis that 'you don't want to overplay the young kids in relation to not burning them out and putting to many elemnets of pressure on them in relation to their development' then it will show the great difference between our attitudes and those in the NRL. There, if a kid is good enough he's old enough, including for state of origin and green and golds. We tend to be far more conservative up here.

Incorrect.

Our pack was poor last night.