Phelps is more willing to put his body on the line than Richards. Could you honestly see Richards going down for the ball like Phelps did last night as the Hull KR player went to kick it. In that kind of situation Phelps has no fear a bit like Radders used to be.

With the weather conditions and the fact that Vella weren't playing Noble thought we could beat them down the middle, he went with Riddell instead of Tomkins which I agreed with but its the fact of the matter is that Riddell played crap and it was not Noble making the wrong decisions.

If Ainscough would have played he woud have been peppered with kicks from the best kicker in the comp all night, what would that have done to his confidence?

We would have had another Desi Williams moment I think.

Noble put faith in Riddell to play well and he never, if the weather was great Im sure he would have played Tomkins, not saying Tomkins has never played in the rain just saying that the conditions were for an up the jumper sort of game, thats why he went for 4 forwards on bench.

Really?

I don't recall Williams scoring 17 tries in 10 games.

Simple fact is, if Ainscough would have played he would have been targeted al match and Ainscough would either sink or swim under the pressure.

Swim - Deal with it and become a player like Jason Robinson

Sink - Fluff it under the pressure and conditions and dissapear like Desi Wiliams.

He is in the reserves to work on these things, once he shows he is dealing with it well he will be back in the side asap. He is a brilliant offensive player, he just needs to work a little on defence and dealing with kicks and then he will be complete.

I have faith in him he will be back in the team soon.

The thing is mate, that despite his failings, he is the best offensive option we have.

If he lets in 2 and scores 3, then that's fine by me.

Let's play the game as it was supposed to be played, and not get hung up on defence, defence, defence.

Would you be benching Offiah at this stage because his defence was a bit leaky? No, I don't think you would.

Noble has shown that he has no idea what he is doing. Time to get rid.

Apart from Sams try last week he looked to be a little tired IMO. It was just his individual abilty stepping that got him the try last week,the rest of his game he looked to be running on reserve. I think it was a good decision to rest him last night BUT in hindsight it looks like we needed a game breaker with individual skill to win us the game.

Last nights weather meant we could not play an attacking game like we have been doing and you can understand Noble thinking he needed the experience/size of Riddell as it was going to be an arm wrestle. Maybe we would of won with Sam in the team,maybe we wouldnt but i dont think you can really blame Noble for choosing to leave him out.

At the end of the day we narrowly lost to the best team in SL at the minute and had we been a bit more composed could of easily won the game. All that seperated the teams was a dodgy try on half time when we thought time was up and an individual missed tackle by Carmont (something he seems to come up with far too often IMO).

What an embarrassing statement. Are we supposed to believe that some random message board poster called Jack Kerley knows better than him?

What qualifications do you have to say you know better than Brian Noble?

Utter rubbish.

Phelps is the best fullback at the club, he gives 110% and puts his body on the line. He also offers so much more in attack.

Ainscough could come in for either Richards or Roberts tbh, Richards goalkicking would probably see him edge it.

I expect however, Phelps to centre for Carmont next week with Pat/Amos at 1 with Ainscough in.

Who are you Frank Endacott

No need to move Phelps just put Bailey in at centre or even bring Pryce in and let him have another go.

True but we dont need to do an full scale Endacott style rejig to the entire back line!

Just drop Roberts and bring Ainscough in if need be.

Simples!

I was merely offering a suggestion, fwiw you may be correct. First time and all that

I seem to remember someone once saying about football, 'you never win anything with kids' those lads look like the real deal and they won't get any better playing at Academy level.

They have to be given their head and the odd mistake or bad game is only what any other player will have. Remember Fielden, he's had a few?!?!?

The Wigan way is to ignore the lads for Aussie 'talent' until they end up at other clubs.

Wigan have a great youth set up and a great deal of amateur talent to choose from they should be targetting a squad with no imports in the next ten years, but will they???

Pugwash.

Absolutely. We'll never know for sure but that was a massively physical game, as well as a hugely testing game for everyone's skills and whilst hindsight is a wonderful thing Nobby selected the best team, in theory, for the conditions.

Look at Webb last night - shockingly bad, dropped balls all over the place - and he's meant to be one of the best full backs in the world. Ainscough would have been targeted all night long and in those conditions it would probably have told eventually.

Sam was a possibility. His sidestep would have been a great attacking assett last night (look at Tommy's sidestep for our first(?) try) when tacklers couldn't turn quickly without slipping, but he too would have been targetted all night by the big runners and as hard as he tries and as well as he tackles, players like Gene would go straight through him in torrential rain.