Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 3:19 pm  

Lardyboy, underthesticks - i could not agree more.

Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 3:56 pm  

underthesticks wrote:

This is not an attempt at trolling and please do not jump down my throat, but you have a lot of good young players. Why do you not use them instead? You know you are assured of Super League. A great deal has been made of your youth set up in terms of you being awarded Super league status. Surely it would be good to give some of them a go. It would be a lot easier to blood them in this than SL. Surely you would enjoy seeing some of your own talents flourish. Oops sorry, just realised that this has been mentioned.

I'm glad its not just me. I'll stop looking for me marbles!

Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:03 pm  

underthesticks wrote:

This is not an attempt at trolling and please do not jump down my throat, but you have a lot of good young players. Why do you not use them instead? You know you are assured of Super League. A great deal has been made of your youth set up in terms of you being awarded Super league status. Surely it would be good to give some of them a go. It would be a lot easier to blood them in this than SL. Surely you would enjoy seeing some of your own talents flourish. Oops sorry, just realised that this has been mentioned.

Yes, we do have good players waiting in the wings. This is just a desperate attempt to make up for poor recruitment by an incompetent coaching staff. I have lost all faith in them now.

Their credibility is absolute zero.

Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:54 pm  

Welcome aboard lads, for what it's worth I would drop netherton altogether and go with Lunt and tomkins. It's clear that scully is a fair way away from full fitness and I think heck has an injury so it's useful cover. Shame Dave houghton isn't getting a run though.

Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 5:01 pm  

Pepe wrote:

Yes, we do have good players waiting in the wings. This is just a desperate attempt to make up for poor recruitment by an incompetent coaching staff. I have lost all faith in them now.

Their credibility is absolute zero.

Unfortunately I have to agree.

"If you have been anywhere near Wigan then we'll have you"

I understand the need to change the side around but dont understand the reluctance to give any of our own players of which are apparently the future a shot in the first team.

Both of the DR'ers are good players and would be good signings if we actually had to do anything in the league or hadn't been handed a franchise. As it is though it flys in the face of everything that we have proclaimed to be and makes us look more of a joke to those in this league when we cant even field one of our own products at the moment in the first team despite the 'World Class' academy.

Very strange at the moment.

Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 5:22 pm  

Leyther_Matt wrote:

I wasn't referring to his recent absence, but he has been particularly injury-prone throughout his career. I'd also suggest that he's (understandably) well short of match fitness at the minute so might make sense to play Crosby in the first team and drop Sculthorpe to the reserves while he regains some fitness?

That sounds logical to me and most others.However our coach seems to think the Widnes first team is the place to be for an unfit prop to rehabilitate.

Pepe wrote:

Yes, we do have good players waiting in the wings. This is just a desperate attempt to make up for poor recruitment by an incompetent coaching staff. I have lost all faith in them now.

Their credibility is absolute zero.

Sadly I agree.Someone said on TIW that the whole love in we have with Wigan is a joke now.I feel the same too.It's also boring and embarrassing .If things continue this way then we may well next year have a repeat of 2005 on our hands when Frank Endacott recruited TOC,Cassidy,Connolly,Smith,Ballard and Whittle.Not to mention Quentin Pongia added to the coaching staff.If rumours are true then we are already showing an interest in two former Wigan players.

Good luck to the two young lads anyway and welcome to Widnes.

Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 5:28 pm  

GSF wrote:

Good luck to the two young lads anyway and welcome to Widnes

In my contempt for the current coaching set up at the club, I have forgotten to do this myself. That was very remiss of me.

I would like to say welcome to the two lads. I hope they get something out of it, and look forward to watching them this season.

Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 5:47 pm  

widneslardboy wrote:

Unfortunately I have to agree.

"If you have been anywhere near Wigan then we'll have you"

I understand the need to change the side around but dont understand the reluctance to give any of our own players of which are apparently the future a shot in the first team.

Both of the DR'ers are good players and would be good signings if we actually had to do anything in the league or hadn't been handed a franchise. As it is though it flys in the face of everything that we have proclaimed to be and makes us look more of a joke to those in this league when we cant even field one of our own products at the moment in the first team despite the 'World Class' academy.

Very strange at the moment.

I must say this did pass through my mind when watching the Leigh game. I'm not disputing the quality or quantity of your young talented players, their record in the reserves league, U18's etc speaks for itself and your youth setup is great. But it seems pointless if they aren't given a run in the 1st team, especially now when you have been guarenteed promotion and have some 1st team players injured or underperforming. Seems the perfect time to throw in one or two kids. You used far more last season (i know you had injuries) and found some gems like Craven.

Leigh had many young acadamy products on display such as Ridyard, Hill, Taylor, Hopkins and a few older ones like Donlan, Govin (and Littler and Goulden I think?). Yet our 'youth' set up is regarded as being behind your own.

Widnes have the great kids, with talent and enthusiasm, you just need Betts to USE them!! As I say this isn't a dig at widnes' youth (which is fantastic) but more the coaching teams failure to use them more in the first team at what seems like the perfect time to do so.

Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 6:05 pm  

I think on the Widnes site it is a big over reaction as per usual.Should be called the Widnes Whinge Forum. Yes we have a good u18s, where some players are only 16, or 17 but are part time.We have some 19 and 20yr olds in the reserves who are similar ages to the Wigan duals.But on the bigger picture the standard in the Superleague reserves is much higher because fulltime players.Next year Widnes will be able to send our youngsters out on dual registration, so lets all be patient.We need to start performing and winning games to get interest in the Town, and if i was a new fan i would like to see a winning team than one that gets smashed by 50 points.Netherton is rubbish and Coyle has been inconsistent, so why not Thompkins and Lunt as rotation?Hecky is injured,and Scully is not upto speed. So a good prop like Crosby is a bonus, as he is rated better than Ben Davies.We have 4 players up for a disciplinary hearing so we could still play some youngsters of our own.

Re: Crosby & Tomkins Jnr Jnr join on DR! : Tue Apr 12, 2011 6:24 pm  

OFFTHECUFF wrote:

I think on the Widnes site it is a big over reaction as per usual.Should be called the Widnes Whinge Forum. Yes we have a good u18s, where some players are only 16, or 17 but are part time.We have some 19 and 20yr olds in the reserves who are similar ages to the Wigan duals.But on the bigger picture the standard in the Superleague reserves is much higher because fulltime players.Next year Widnes will be able to send our youngsters out on dual registration, so lets all be patient.We need to start performing and winning games to get interest in the Town, and if i was a new fan i would like to see a winning team than one that gets smashed by 50 points.Netherton is rubbish and Coyle has been inconsistent, so why not Thompkins and Lunt as rotation?Hecky is injured,and Scully is not upto speed. So a good prop like Crosby is a bonus, as he is rated better than Ben Davies.We have 4 players up for a disciplinary hearing so we could still play some youngsters of our own.

You are missing the point, fella.

If Netherton is rubbish, why was he recruited (in place of Smithy of all people) and why was he playing at Leigh, despite poor performances by him and good performances by Lunt, and why have they all now been replaced by Tomkins?

What happens if he does become brilliant and lifts the team, and then Wigan recall him?

These two dual-regs simply show that we have recruited very poorly. It shows a great deal of short sightedness, with regards to our long term aims, and it makes a mockery of our claim that we trying to bring through our own players. This was a perfect opportunity to blood our own young players. Even if they didn't win, they'd have gained valuable experience from it.

We are neither doing one thing or another here. The coaching staff are admitting that they have got it wrong and are now acting in complete desperation. I wouldn’t be surprised if SOC hasn’t laid the law down and told the coaching staff to start winning games or you’ll be shipped out, and this is all they can come up with.

If this doesn’t work, what do they do next?