I think our areas of improvement need to come from:

creative roles within the team (1, 6,7,9)

pack leader, i.e. a big powerful experience prop



Tomkins will provide the 'x factor' from the back, he has to be played at FB. No one else in our team can come close to Sam, he needs to be played at FB given a free role to attack either flank running out wide either attacking the line or setting up his outside backs. At half back you're looking for someone to 'set up' other players/ball runners as a play maker, often only operating on one side of the pitch.



Who should be in the halves? Williams will come good. He's young, will attack the line and has a quick step. Smith, questionable. He's a good player but is he good enough? That's the debate. Hampshire? I don't get the hype to be honest, not in the senior team at least, if he would have impressed massively he wouldn't be bench warming at Cas.



I like Micky as a player, never been sold on him as a 9 though. I think he'd be a good 13, hardworking tackling machine and enforcer.



Tomkins

Charnley (although his 'facial injury' is an odd one') Sarge Gelling Manfredi

Williams (NEW 7)

Flower (NEW 9) Lockers

Bateman Faz

Micky

-----------------------------

NEW INTERCHANGE 9 NEW EXPERIENCE PROP Clubb, J Tomkins

I agree with you 100%

I hope that Sam plays at 6 going forward rather than 1

Although there's not too much difference offensively i don't think Sam is the best option at the back and would love to see Manfredi given a run there to see how he adapts

When Sam is fit Waney will put him straight back in at full back no matter how good Tierney is playing. Lewis will then be reserve wingman/full back.

Better with Lockers at 13 and it was good that Powell played the full first 40 mins.



Our attack didn't look great at times but this Salford are not the outfit we are used to. These past few years they've been a shambles but are quite the opposite now.

Having Sheens as coach is worth every penny he is being paid. They are very structured and have some good attacking ideas. Sheens has, IMO, made a very good signing in Lui.



It might be a bit early but I reckon Salford will make the top eight easily if just miss out on the top four.

Their squad depth is poor though. Other than their first 17-19 players, they are unknowns. Time will tell if/when they start getting injuries/fitness concerns and have to start playing these untested reserves. I can see them being 6-8th at the end of the season.

I would expect George Williams to suffer a loss of form in his second season. It is only to be expected. Matty Smith is the organiser and in play kicker and therefore cannot be moved to hooker.



For me, I've always felt that Sam is going to be a Stand Off in the long term. Plenty of the x-factor in Sam.



I agree with the poster who suggests Dom Manfredi at full back. This guy is special. But for now, I'm happy to see Lewis Tierney prove us all wrong for some time to come.

But he goes missing time after time, doesn't have game breaking ability and can be very suspect in defence. Smith has days when doing the basics well really helps us win games but they are too few and far between IMO, far more often he will fade into the background. I'd definitely be looking to give Williams more responsibility with regards to organisation and kicking and have Tomkins playing off him. Having Smith on the bench gives us an option if GW/ST is having an off day or we need to close out an ugly win in poor conditions (having said that, him not demanding the ball and taking a shot at the DG v Catalans and Huddersfield hardly filled me with confidence). Otherwise he can spell MM and likely do so more competently than Powell tends to.

I follow us home and away as I've no doubt you do as well Grimmy. I think we'll have to agree to differ. My view (and I realise I'm in the minority on here) is that Matty NEVER hides or fades into the background. He takes the ball right up to the line every time. Contrast that with Walsh at Saints. Matty's kicking is superior to anyone at the club. Providing the forwards do their job his kicking for field position is better than Williams, Hampshire, Powell or anyone else you care to name.



I'll admit that he's not perfect (who is?) but his is severely underrated by Wigan fans. I suspect he's one of those players who you miss when he's not there. He's not flashy but he does his job well. The Stand Off (Williams or Tomkins) can add the running - that's what makes a partnership. How many times do you see Thurston break the line? (I'd say Matty is a poor man's Thurston if you like) But it's not necessary, if your Stand Off can break the line.

Not to mention his non-existent passing game. How can someone that has played 7 internationally not be able to pass? It's unbelievable.



And to play devils advocate to th Manfredi to 1 posts, I think we need him out wide with his ruthless finishing ability. Some of the tries he scores most of the wingers in SL wouldn't be able to do never mind Tierney or Gildart.

Jeff Robson might be a better comparison.





And Thurston does take on the line, quite often.Surely half the point of being a half-back is that you come to the line, ansd you have three options: pass, run or kick. If you occasionally try all three, you keep defences guessing. If you always do the same thing...

Think the difference is Thurston has the best passing game Ive ever seen! I cant remember the last time Matty smith threw as 30 yard pass or put someone clean threw a hole where the overlap wasnt already there for the taking

When youve got a player like that you can afford to have someone to do the running for hime like Morgan does

Thurston is one of the all time greats, he's a very, very special player indeed.





Not sure it's fair to be mentioning Thurston in a discussion about Matty Smith....

I think that not having Blake Green in the side for the last year and a bit has severely exposed Matty Smith's shortcomings as a player. Whilst he generally has a great in-play kicking game, his pace is sorely lacking for a half back and his passing is sometimes woeful. I've often found him to be ball greedy in attack in trying to score tries himself whilst ignoring the easy pass option. That being said, I don't think moving him to hooker would be the best option as a stop-gap while MM is out but would be interested to see how Williams and Tomkins went at 6 & 7.

I just don't think he's good enough for Wigan, period.



And I don't think that comparing him to Thurston helps his case at all.



Smith may have similar physical characteristics to Thurston, but that's where it ends. There is absolutey no comparison beyond that. Thurston is a global star, while Smith is a journeyman who is holding Wigan back.

Like it or not Matty is the current Wigan and England Scrum Half. Comparisons with Thurston may be unfair but Thurston doesn't break the line and he doesn't do 30 yard passes either. He guides the team around the field like Matty does. Matty's range of passing isn't close to Thurston's of course and his kicking is nowhere near as accurate either but he gets the job done with no fuss.



I always find it hilarious that the posters on here seem to think they know better than the Wigan and England coaches. A bit of humility might be in order boys and girls.

Where is the lack of humility?



These are just observations. Another one is that Matty's England selection surely indicates the standards in the British game at present - which, to be honest, we already know about. Our three top clubs got totally rolled in the WCC. Granted, there were players missing, but they got hammered, smashed, humiliated. It was men against boys.



We don't even have to go back as far as Andy Gregory to name Wigan scrum-halves who were better than Matty. Tommy L, Adrian Lam. Not Brits, but they lit up the domestic competition in the UK. It may seem unfair comparing MS to players in earlier eras, but that's my point. Current levels of qualiy are very low across the board - even compared to just a few years ago.



I think that's the explanation behind Matty's selection. Let's remember that for a brief time, George made the England team too - and he's nowhere near ready for that yet.

I wouldn't disagree with anything you've said. But why single Matty out? If he's the best of a bad bunch then surely that means others are worse. How does that make him a liability? How does that mean he's not good enough for Wigan? He seems to be the current scapegoat on here for some reason.



And before you get too misty eyed about the past I well remember going to the 1992 World Cup Final at Wembley when our scrum half that day was none other than Derek Fox from Featherstone. A good player for sure, but give me Matty any day. His performance in a Man of the Match display in the third test seems to have been overlooked in a "What have the Romans ever done for us?" kind of way. Matty was the lynchpin of the double winning team lets not forget (Lance Todd winner too). He may well be missing Blake but I reckon if we put Sam in there it would make for a very tasty partnership.

I thought Dobson last Thursday looked far more dangerous than Smith. Not saying Matty was poor, more that he was quiet. Dobson has a great boot too.

For someone who was instrumental in our survival in 2006 cant believe we never made an approach for him since.

And if you try all three at once you fall on your backside.

Despite other stuff I've said, this is honestly not 'pick on Matty week'.



I also feel we are lacking any strike-force in the centres. I don't rate Sarge and Gelling is too unreliable, while we have weak links in the forwards too (Mossop being the most glaring example, though even our back-rowers are very small).



But I feel that one of the biggest problems is our lack of creativity. George could be so much more dangerous running alongside a scrum half who can open doors for him. We are third in the league with a points-difference of only 15. The three teams below us have a better one than that, while the two above us are way higher. It was a key problem towards the end of last year that we couldn't score tries. Thus far in 2016, it's the same story. Surely our main play-maker must take a lot of the blame for that?



He's a willing lad, Matty Smith, and by all accounts a nice a guy, but I feel Wigan are in a real rut at present. Instead of recruiting experience, we've again relied on an exciting generation of youngsters - but the best one of those has now left and the one everyone used to really rave about can't even get into the Castleford first team. That's what happens when you bank on kids. You're lucky if one or two of them make the grade. Okay, that's not Matty's fault - but I just feel we need a big clear-out of those who aren't performing and to replace them with some real quality, and our midfield general role is the most vitally in need of overhaul.



I know that's not easy, by the way, especially mid-season. But I feel it's a new strategy we should be adopting at the soonest opportunity.

I agree that Smith is jot as bad as made out by a lot of posters, he has won games for us and he is a steady influence. I would like a fast line busting scrum half but that's not his game, he does have the best kicking game at the club and he is our goal kicker. His goal kicking looks better he seems to have added more range to his kicking he was close with every kick on Thursday.



Any replacement would have to tick a lot of boxes

Matty Smith worlds best number 7...

Got to give it to Smith. He messed up by kicking dead at a crucial time to hand Hull the lead but to fight back and drop two goals over should give him a lot of confidence.

It hardly handed Hull the lead. They did have 80 metres to go!!!

I assume you are referring to the grubber which went touch in goal rather than touch, resulting in a 20m restart rather than the desired 10m scrum. I think NK is referring to the kick off which went out on the full, which is a penalty of the halfway, so after the penalty kick to touch they would have had 30-40 to go with a full set. Surely you can't deny it was a big let off for them and strongly contributed to their comeback?



Having said that, impressed with Smith for nailing both drop goals and making the decision to go for them. I've been critical of him the past few weeks for not even going for the one point on offer at crucial times but he did the job twice here. Last season he tended to miss one before he got one as well but none of that on Friday. Ideally he would have kicked the touchline conversion, not given away big penalty and either put the grubber in touch or kicked the second drop goal at that point but I know he's not Thurston, or even Sinfield. He did the job well here.

My mistake, I remembered the grubber but conveniently forgot the kick off!



He seems to have added to his range doesn't he, unless there was a strong wind behind that kick. Anyway you are right, that was a bad error.



Referring to the last drop goal, he was very clever, he organised the backs to his right in plain view so that the defence weren't able to push up on him, thus keeping them honest. It gave him the chance to measure his kick instead of rushing it.