: Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:04 pm
Mathers - Very nervous when the ball was kicked towards him and let the ball run out into touch rather than attempting to take it and run, making it harder for our side to break through the Wakefield defense and find any decent field position and seemed to be out of position in attack and loitered about too much.
Richards - Solid game but didn't see much of the ball.
Carmont - No real complaints other than his miscommunication with Richards when he went over the touch line when we had a decent amount of tackles left and good field position.
Phelps - Defensively he seemed to be caught out on quite a few occasions and left open holes for Wakefield to utilise.
Roberts - Was awful and very, very slow as well as out of position for a lot of Wakefield's attack which led to their tries, showed promise under the high bomb however.
Smith - Made a couple of decent openings for the side and kicked a 40/20 to give us field position but let himself down with numerous kicks down the right hand side which was covered effectively by Wakefield which made his gameplan predictable, showed promise though.
Leuluai - By far our most explosive player with ball in hand and moved very well to find himself gaps which gave him more breaks than any one else (I think!), not the best kicking game however.
Fielden - Poor, especially after the back end of last season he looked like the Fielden of old he struggled to power forward today and make life easier for the rest of the side.
Riddell - I thought he was very anonymous for his first game and although he made one decent kick in the game didn't take a stranglehold on it like I thought he might...early days however.
Paleaasina - Not as effective as he can be sometimes and I think that may be down to good defence from Wakefield and poor distribution from Wigan with the ball offered to Feka when he was in a static position.
Bailey - At fault for one of the breaks of Wakefield because he turns like a canal boat but good defence.
Hock - Apart from the blistering run at the end of the game he was poor today with a few handling errors.
O'Loughlin - Laughable in attack. Couldn't control the ball and lost it on numerous occasions but showed his usual form in defence.
O'Carroll - Our best prop today, made no errors AFAIK and made good yards.
Coley - Rubbish, gave away the ball and a penalty in a two minute spell and lost the ball on numerous occassions with very little go forward was our worst performer IMO.
J. Tomkins - Looked very lively and almost broke through a few times, got the try because his positional play is top notch, between him and Leuluai for MOTM in our team.
Hansen - Boosted our defence as usual but offered little else.
Next Week's team:
Roberts
Richards
Goulding
Carmont
Pryce/Ainscough
Smith
Leuluai
Fielden
Riddell
O'Carroll
Bailey
O'Loughlin
J.Tomkins
Paleaasina
Hock
Prescott/Coley
S.Tomkins/McIlorum.
We should have listened.
