What I don't understand with Lineham is when we signed him he played on the right wing. This was a replacement for Joel. He now plays on the left wing.

No Baptiste is Australian, the only reason he can play for PNG is because his dad was born there.
I'd be more than happy with Baptiste hit's like a truck in defence, accelerates quickly from a dead stop, Great passing game and really picks his passes creating Gaps. 9 or 13 he'd be great for us

I completely missed that, yeah good spot. Get Lineham on the outside of someone like Goodwin and he'd rack up alot of tries next season

Then we'd have Russell outside Atkins....!
:O

Lineham on the let wing is a fairly recent thing, only happened this year. www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/new ... s/?ref=arc

Lineham on the let wing is a fairly recent thing, only happened this year. www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/new ... s/?ref=arc

Wigan’s back up wingers would be automatic staters in our team.

Rumours gathering pace on twitter about Charnley as Sale have signed a new winger.

Whilst I think Charnley would readjust quickly to RL, I’m not sure about having to use the other marquee spot in order to match his salary at Sale. He’s good, but not that good. If he can work for less than £175k then great. He’s a wonderful finisher.

Agree, he's not worth marquee money, hard to imagine [iany [/iwinger would be. Also, he used to have the worst haircut in RL - baton passed to George Williams - has this improved?

Because Tony Smith had his favorites. He knew Russell wasn't/isn't good enough but to save face he forced him into the team by moving Lineham to the left. Lineham's best moments in a Wire shirt have come from the few times he's played on the right. Hull FC away last year as one example. I could be wrong but it may come down to the fact that when he plays on the right he has a centre who is willing to pass him the ball.

That was my biggest problem with Charnley when he was at Wigan. He looks like a Chav. With Sims now gone, the team's whole hair care budget should be focussed on Charnley (assuming we can entice him from Sale).

I only watched the BBC highlights of the Scotland game & i must confess that i don't remember seeing Russell in camera shot once,although in his summary Kevin Sinfield stated that both Scottish wingers had great games.

Scottish or Scotland wingers?

Danny Brough must have the worst Scottish accent I've ever heard.

Charnly is an excellent finisher who has a superb try record. I think he’d be a great signing and exactly what we need. I think him signing could be the difference from us trying to get into the top 4 to becoming serious challengers.

In 2016 Matty Russell carried the ball further than any other back in Super League and was in second best carrier (to Chris Hill) of all. We have to give him some credit that he is indeed an elusive and explosive runner.

Perhaps because that's all he has got. A scoot from the PTB, that's it.

It's a shame its not the wingers primary objective to make yards off of a scoot. If that was the case he'd be the best winger in the world. As it happens though... Its's not and he's cack.

Doesn't that just sum up our 2017 in one paragraph. We value wingers as "ball returners" rather pacey, elusive, try scorers.

Brian Bevan and Dessie would have been sent to Rochdale for sure.

And how many tries did he score from these elusive and explosive runs?

He's also ranked 14th in the whole league for runs from DH. Ahead of some team's starting hookers.

But he's not a hooker. He's a winger, and should be judged on that.

It's like excusing a prop who can't tackle because he kicked the most drop goals, or a fullback who can't catch because he makes a mean chicken madras.

Here's another 2016 stat -
Lineham 72% try-rate in 22 games
Penny 70% try-rate in 20 games
Russell - 29% try-rate in 31 games

League Express as us as Baptiste signed and NoseyParker in the other paper is all over the Charnley rumour,he also mentions Baptiste.

Is he relaible?

What about a Tongan second-row who makes a mean Chicken Tikka Masila?

*I think Russell played predominantly at Full Back. So not really appropriate.

I thought this might happen. I personally don't think Russell is a winger. But he has some strengths as a rugby player. Teams quite often put two hookers on the pitch e.g. Hodgson/Baptiste, Dwyer/Clark and Papua New Guinea (last Saturday). He could be a loose forward as they seem to have a variety of rolls in the modern game. He runs as strongly as anyone and there are many times in a game when you just want someone to make some tough yards. I'd love a new winger but wouldn't dish the crap out on Matty Russell as much as some on the forum.

Yes, fair point about playing FB. I forgot he was supposed to be on the wing, but played FB to cover for injuries to Ratch then Sandow.

I completely agree that the Russell-bashing on here is a bit over the top. I actually think he's been coached/told to play that way over the past couple of seasons, so doesn't 100% deserve the rap he's got. Our other wingers, including the likes of Chris Riley used to also have to make similar central yards from the ruck early in the tackle count. It's just that Russell has been pretty damn good at performing this task, but all the other elements of wing play let him down.

He is no winger unfortunately. However, I disagree with moving him forward. We have far better back-rowers in our 13 + squad than him. I don't think he could do a better job there than who we already have.

He's possibly a victim of TS. I genuinely believe he was signed as our long term FB, so Ratch could play 6. But because of our halfback shambles and Ratch ultimately nailing the 1 shirt, he's been shunted on the wing to "do a job".

Had he been kept consistently at FB, and thusly allowed to improve his FB play from there, I imagine no one would be complaining about Russell today.

Like I said, an unfortunate victim of TS.

Is who reliable

He is a full back, but since the bad head injury he sustained he has not had the confidance at full back. His ball return is a million times better than ratchford and on most defensive aspects they are similar russel is not likely to chime into the line as ratchford does or be the 3rd pivot but they are different styles of full backs and can both be used at fb over a season

Wing is a tough position to play the margins are fine and the consequences of a missed tackle dropped ball can be huge and hard to recover from they need to be afforded a little leeway in how harsh we judge them. To say russel cannot catch is not true and also over emphasise the potential weakness. Yes he has dropped balls more than we would like but do has bully slater zack hardaker Tompkins shall etc but if you say he cannot catch enough people will start to believe it!!!


We need a new winger because we need competition for places to improve our squad depth and to add a proven big game Finisher who if we get that one chance to win a game we want that chance to fall to them. Russel does not fall into that category.