I got the impression from what IL said at the forum it would be a 'hairy ar@ed forward' we would be looking at first when money became available.

Well we'll see, I remember both a certain M Bamford and a certain A Murphy wanting 'hairy ar@ed forwards' and we went and signed Gill and West respectively, which worked out well. Unlike them days however, i'm confident we'll get the player that MM wants whatever he is. I do hope however that we adopt the same approach of getting the right player when he's available (and can be fitted under the cap), not when we're only in dire need, as with the salary cap the day's of throwing out big money to get a quick deal are well and truly gone.

i dont want to sound like a harbinger of doom, but i think there may be a few people going OTT here.
yes we won comfortably, but against a VERY poor team still hungover from the week before

good defence
good discipline (much improved)
but for long periods of time we didnt look creative (dominated the 2nd half territory and possession and only scored 3)
very few offloads
looked dependent on kicks to score
feka - sorry "new slimmed down 80 minute" feka - walked off the field after the same old 10-15 min stints

a nice start to the year, and a LOT better than last year, but lets just wait to judge how good we are yet.
this year is going to be exceptionally competitive with the top 2 being dragged further back into the pack.
lets judge it after week 3. if we're top, then i will be very happy about the future.

Who the hell would want him on for the 80? Also, the thing is if he does more than the 15...wouldn't that mean all the other props were doing an average of the same as well? (2 lots of say 20 would be an equally split workload), which sort of defeats the idea of a quick impact designed to shift momentum in our direction. I thought the whole idea of better fitness for Feka was so we wouldn't have the embarassment on Monas (or equivalent) ripping us up again.

If Phelps attack is worth more than his few errors in defence the same definitely was true of Ainsough last season but some people were having none of it. I am simply drawing the obvious parallel.

And Roberts defensive problems were easily as bad if not worse than Ainscoughs. Roberts made some absolute howlers and you saying they were nowhere near as many as Ainscough just perpetuates the myth Ainscough was some sort of defensive liability IMO which he wasn't.

It's clear the "his attacking skill outweigh his defensive liabilities" is only applies when it suits
Dave, your obiously far better than me at this quoting lark as last time I tried it took me Half an our! But here goes!

You were drawing paralels between the Phelps situation & The Ainscough situation of last year, I was pointing out there is 1 subtle difference.
Last Year Noble thought that Phelps/Richards/Roberts was a better option than Ainscough ousting any 1 of those 3. At least for now, so does Maguire. Where does that show that I am ignoring the "Positives outweigh the negatives" Argument when it suits?
So in short last year we had a better option than Ainscough, this year I was asking do we have a better option than Phelps, if we do then fair enough, lets change it.
Thats not me being hypocritical, that is me not comparing Apples & Oranges so to speak. You comparing the 2 situations is the problem because the 2 x situations aren't the same.
As far as I am concerned that means that unless we have a better option at Fullback for this year then for me Phelps plays, do You agree?
That also applies to every position in the team as every player has strengths & weaknesses & his selection will be based on the Merits of those & if we have anyone better to replace them.


As for Ainscough last year & This I agree with, that his positives outweigh his negatives, Never have disagreed with that,unfortunately for Him The coach of last year & the coach of this year thinks that Roberts/Richards/Phelps combination is better. If Ainscough were to play next week or at anytime over the next season I would be over the moon for the lad and I don't think it would affect us that much. It's just that ATM Certain people think Roberts (And I'm saying his name only this time cos I know what your trying to get at) is a better player.
That does not mean that They, I or anyone else thinks Ainscough is rubbish etc it's just that they feel He isn't the best option at this time.

As for saying that Roberts Looks like a different player this year, that's an opinion that I'm sure a few will have. However, I don't totally share that opinion as as far as I'm concerned Roberts was a better player last year also. Again I'm not saying Ainscough is no good etc etc but Obviously Noble felt the same. I take on board what yu say about different wings but FACTS show that our left wing pairing got far more ttries between them than our right wing for the past God Knows! Was that a failg of Noble's coaching? Probably, but we will never know if Ainscough would have scored 1/2 as many if any at all playing on the right or if Amos would have got double what Ainscough or Rivhards did.

Dave, you say "What the Hell am I on about now". 1st thing's 1st, there were a couple of people involved in the Phelps conversation at this time and maybe my response would have been better served up to them. Their view on the subject is that Phelps shouldn't be playing at all for us at FB this year, I was only pointing out that MM must have had some input into the resigning of Phelps as he was also advising us as early as last May on what props Not to sign!
My opinion is that he's better for theam than any other optiobn we have at the moment and until we have another option or unless MM thnks he can get us a better option then I think we stick with him.
I do agree that if we can get a better value £for£ FB from someshere then we should, but I also think there are other cogs in the Wheel that may need sorting first and not all can be changed at once.

I totally agree with your comments about finding 1 or 2 Marquee Named superstars and I do think we can get them, I just think that until The Fielden Salary stops to weigh us down we need to make sure we do the best for "The Squad".
My only slight argument is that when you quote Mo doing what he did he did it without the salary cap hanging over his head & when it did he didn't make the best job of it.
Also at the time he did pay out more to the likes of Gregory/Lydon/Goodway etc but then once we became the Top club he didn't need to entice players as much because they were clamouring to play for us as we were the Top Team.
IL doesn't have the benefit of either of these 2 x option ATM.

As for Piggy, my point Dave is that no matter what the situation, you can't resist bringing Piggy and/or Amos into the argument.

I thought he was OK 1st 30 (We were 20-0 up and looking good) and I thought we actually looked less organised when Tommy went to 9 (We won the next 30 12-6). Now I am not saying that the individual is responsible for the overall scoring patterns but I threw some stats up for Higham about 2 years ago when it looked like he wasnt staying. It showed that when Millard started we were in an arm wrsetle or in front 95% of the time after the 1st 20/25 minutes. When Higham started we were very often blown away in the 1st 20 and 95% of our good hidings we got in 2006/2007 were when Higham Started. Higham as an impact "Off the Bench" Hooker, fair enough, I don't think theres too many better (Maybe 2 or 3 IMO) but as astarting 9, I'm afraid not for me.
That is why I felt that we had to get a better starting 9, I think Piggy is that. Maybe he hasn't been all I thought he could be yet but he is certainly an improvement IMO. Now again, that is my opinion, I don't think it's that much of a crime especially when many others have that same opinion.

Now finally on the point were you think my comment about Roberts defence is "far superior" and you saying it "is IMO ridiculous".

Your entitled to that opinion, but I don't think it is Ridiculous. I'm just stating that I think Roberts is a Very Good All round Winger that reads the defensive side of the game "Very Well". If you think otherwise then fair enough. But if Ainscough is again so much better in attack but not much worse than Roberts in defence then why do Wigan coaches continue to pick Roberts?
That again just for clarification, does not mean that I think Ainscough is poor defensively, I just think that Roberts is Far better.

Quick question, Why do you think Maguire picks Roberts over Ainscough? & Who would you pick?

I am concious that words written down can often come across in a very different way than if they were being spoken so again Dave, I'm not looking for any kind of argument here, just stating my opinion that with the current squad, Phelps/Richards/Roberts is the best option we have.
And Unless you have the best 13 x players ine ach position then there will always somewhere you can improve by replacing them with someone else next year. I'm not so sure that doing too many of these changes in a short term period is the best option for this club under the restrictions the recruitment has to be done under.