A good kicker, yes, takes the team round the park,yes, but a top 4 halfback, no.Really good halves, e.g. Briers,Edwards, Long, Dobson, Schofield, etc. also take the ball to the line, hold the ball, time the pass and put players through the gap, make breaks and support breaks, and score tries. Holdsworth is ordinary at all these things. In fact when putting on a move it often breaks down because of him - this happened twice in the warm up at Cas! He is an improvement, but not the answer - how many tries have we scored this season?!
I`m amazed people still wonder where Horne will fit in. He is still a class act, until injured our best player by a mile - how we have missed him. He should be the first named half back on the teamsheet. Even his kicking game, until this season a weakness I admit, has improved enormously.
Are all the players at Wigan naturally gifted players, or are all the teams drilled and drilled again in passing and running lines? Whoever plays, the ball still seems to zip down the line, whereas we seem to break down so often. I wonder what we are doing in training!
anl.

Im not a Holdsworth fan either. At Salford he was a big fish in a small pond but here hes the opposite and not really cutting it for me and I don't believe that a team that wants to win things will do so with Holdsworth in its side

think you will see a big difference now we have Miller, once he gets some game time, it will take a lot of the pressure of DH. Potentially now have a very exciting young partnership at 6 and 7, first time for years. give em time.

I agree.
Bring back Wayne portlock. Or Shane endacott.

Young?

Its amazing what losing two games can do to peoples judgement. DJ will be fine once he is in a settled partnership and got to know the players around him better.

You can't blame him for our lack of tries because he has missed a lot of games.

What is this urban myth of a "top 4 player" anyway, its the biggest rubbish I have heard ever. To get to the top 4 you need a team not just a player.

Agree with all of that. Holdsworth has had a few quiet games i agree, but to slander him like some posters have it's unreal.
Yes we haven't scored many tries upto now. But given how we've displayed upto now i can see tries in us once DJ an Miller have settled. Showed glimpses against Castleford, unfortunately our defense let us down.

Just to recap

you think Holdsworth isn't a top half back and you provide evidence of this by him making an error in hist 1st pre season game bearing in mind he didn't start pre season with the squad till early new year?

Horney has played more games this season so surely he has to take responsibilty for our lack of tries this season?

holdsworth has only played 11 games with his new team after only arriving in january and suffered a extremely serious injury which affected him in 2 or 3 of those games too

If holdsworth isn't a top Half can you explain why he keeps getting picked for the Exiles

Best kicking game we've seen at Hull for donkey's years and decent with ball in hand. one of first names on the team sheet I should imagine.

Basically.

The OP would also do well to remember that Horne is having his best season for ages partly because of Holdsworth's presence freeing him up to play his natural game.

I'm not 100% on him either yet.. Had 2 fantastic performances (Wolves & Leeds) around average the rest. Had more bad games than excellent this year, Friday in particular.
Should be nowhere near a kicking tee as he is IMO the worst goal kicker we've had in years!!

I agree he is an improvement on what we had but wouldn't be worth the reported big money!!

We really NEED to invest in a goal kicker next season, they win games!! DJ has cost us too many points this year never mind competition points!!

Crooks

Had 11games in total. Had Aaron, Horne, n miller as partners(not in sequence) back n forth. So not even built a real partnership yet. Take him away we get no points at saints, lose v wire n would probably lost v Leeds as well.
Also the argument about standing out as a big fish in small pond baffles me.(Salford) surely it's harder to stand out with no platforms to work off/with.
Seen plenty of players bigged up at top teams who've been shown up at lower teams

I don't understand the complaining about his goalkicking. Yes he isn't to good at the minute but he's not our 1st choice kicker, maybe he's just the best of the rest. There's got to be some reason he keeps been given the responsibility & I doubt it's because he demands it.