I don't know what Myler was thinking taking the hit up - you could see it coming.

Was funny when Mark Henry knocked Feka on his ar$e as well though.

A myler / tomkins partnership would be interesting playing the french

Not going to happen though. Smith has already stated he will be going as a 19th man without the intention of playing him. Made the decision to "rest" him tonight all the more strange in my opinion.

No it didnt. Lets not look for something that isn't there.

Smith & Tommy will play together next week - it made sense to play them together tonight as well so we have a bit of cohesion next week.

Bench spot? or do you not advocate him as a first 17 player? I do not think he should have started but worth a place on the bench, add to this fact we are playing the worst team in the history of SL next week did he really need "resting". It simply means the week after he will have had the best part of 3 weeks without any game time.

I wouldn't have had a problem with him on the bench, but Riddell needs games and McIllorum deserves his spot and it will help the continuity next week.

No we aren't - Halifax Blue Sox hold that crown.

He wasn't "rested" he wasn't selected because he wasn't going to play next week.

I really can't understand what point your making beyond having a pop at Noble.

Sam Tomkins is one of the few payers we have who we can bring on to offer something different and at times this season our attack has reverted to being one dimensional.

Smith went off the boil tonight which is hardly surprising given he was away on family business down under so won't have been training or playing with the team.

So therefore it made even less sense to leave Sam T out as it was likely Smith would tire.

A bench spot for Sam T and one less prop would have been a much better selection from Noble IMO for this reason alone.

Salford have a poor pack and with Hansen on the bench able to fill in at prop as well we were hardly in danger of losing the forward battle.

Is this, whick I feel think a well reasoned argument that Noble made a mistake, "having a pop" at Noble? No doubt someone will think so but I'd like to think it was a reasoned argument that he made a selection error in not having cover for a player who was likely to tire.

No need to do the half back/hooker merry go round when Sam T came on. Just a straight swap for Smith.

Dave

All the more important for Smith to play and see the game through then as Sam isn't about next week.

He was either dropped or rested tonight. The official line from Wigan is he was rested due to his involvement next week with England. Tony Smith has said there is 1 player who will not play next week and is there for the experience and named Tomkins as that player.

We have entered into a pretty easy spell regards fixtures which even in our current state we should win. In my opinion Tomkins deserves his spot over McIllorum on form in our strongest 17. As it stands it will be a month between first team games for him, if selected in our next game after Celtic, and the fixtures pick up in quality again with Sam our main strike back off the bench a month without first team, or any for that matter rugby.

He may get half a game in the reserves today.

Wigan are down to 15 fit players at that level and the academy are also playing away at Salford, so they can't use many of them.

To be honest a three week break is probably ideal for Sam, but as I said in the thread about the 19 for last nights game I would have had him in the team in place of McIlorum.

He always lowers his standard to lesser talented teams

He is playing in a poor team and has been very good for the majority of the season. In the last 2 games Salford have been totally outplayed and the forwards have been dominated. No scrum half in the world would make a difference in those circumstances.

From what I have seen of Tomkins he has been largely annonymous and isnt even a first choice Wigan half back. He has some talent but is very overated imo and I cant ever see him being a top scrum half.

Its a good job the people who matter and who actually know RL think different

Do you care to expand? Noble doesnt seem to think much different and he is the Wigan coach. Oh I forgot only Wigan fans can criticise Wigan youngsters

Simple really

start of the season Noble said he would get 10-12 games this season and thats whats happening. hes a young lad who playing SL in his first year as a first teamer.Every coach thats coached him say hes going to be a star.

You seen him how many times 2-3 ? and you believe thats enough to say hes not going to be a good player

I'm a Hull FC fan and think Tomkins is a tremendous young talent. I'd love him at Hull although he'd suffer behind our terrible pack. I think he'd form a great partnership with Myler and I think it should be those two against the French.

I have seen him play far more than 2 or 3. He has no organisational game, a poor kicking game and often goes missing in matches. You dont even realise he is playing half the time. His best points are his defence and his elusiveness. However even this has become predicatable as he constantly tries to dummy and go himself until it finally works on the 20th occasion against a tiring defence.

Myler has faults too but even at a younger age is already a better all round player, hence his England selection last year and this.

Well this guy with no organisational game, poor kicking game and who goes missing, has just torn your reserves to pieces almost single handedly in the second half this afternoon - and didn't even break a sweat doing it.

A perfectly positioned kick after the very first set in the first half got Wigan a repeat set (he has a poor kicking game?).

On two occasions he kicked through and followed himself, collecting and then setting up tries.

Fair enough that's not first team - but you could not be more wrong in your assessment of Tomkins.

I don't think I've ever seen a player who enjoys playing rugby more than Sam.

He was supposed to be on the subs bench in the first half. However after about 10 minutes he'd had enough. He was alongside Phil Vievers for the rest of the half badgering Vievers to get him on the field.

As you say once on the field he just took control.

I hope you're not an RL scout or have any association to the sport other than being a fan of Salford, otherwise the future of the sport and its youngsters is incredibly bleak. Clearly you can't spot a natural raw talent at a young age, that needs time and experience to develop, expecting miracles in a player's first season. Tomkins has shown flashes of the quality that will make him a fine player at the very least with a bit of luck avoiding injuries. Myler is also a potentially great player and is ahead in his development due to an increased amount of first team games that he's played and the lack of expectation at his club that allows him to express himself a little more than Sam. However I'd say Tomkins has the far higher ceiling as a player in the next decade because of his superior ability to read the game, to go along with his natural talents.

At Salford its no surprise that Myler, Ratchford, Turner and Adamson shine at a young age and good luck to them. But its because of the dross around them forcing them into a prominent role in the team, rather than them being in anyway superior to youngsters in the academy at Wigan, Saints, Leeds, Hull, etc, that struggle to establish themselves in the first team at such a young age because of the general higher quality of players and expectations at those clubs.

It is not really difficult to do that, most teams and players tear our reserves to pieces because they are awful. Indeed I believe the final score was Wigan 32 - 24 Salford which is a really good result for us as we normally lose by far more. Warrington absolutey battered us a few weeks ago and I would have expected Wigan to win by much more today.

I hope you're not an RL scout either. You criticise cherrydevil (whose view I don't particulary agree with) for saying that the players around Tomkins make him look better than he is and then proceed to do pretty much the exact same thing about our younger players by strangely saying they look good because they're surrounded by garbage.

It's more difficult to look good in a crap team than it is to look good in a team full of quality players - look at Ste Tyrer, he was the next Jamie Lyon a couple of years ago.

All Salford's youngsters I mentioned are doing well and have impressed, no criticism from me - but the difference is that they have the platform to shine in a poorer team, where there isn't the competition for places or the same expectations, allowing players to make their mistakes and learn from them at first team level. Salford will reap the benefits of this development in future years, with Castleford being an example of a similar system a year further down the line. The point I'm trying (and apparently failing) to make, is that there are players of equal (if not better) quality current plying their trade in the Reserves at bigger clubs - however it is more difficult for them to establish themselves with first team rugby at a similar age due to competition, with less margin for error due to higher expectations. Hence Tomkins may be further behind a Myler for example at a similar age due to the club's that they are playing for, making an unfair comparison of the two at an early stage in their respective careers - given the greater experience / responsibility that Myler has had thrust open him and the limited competition for a first team spot he can take more chances than Sam who will likely be dropped if he has a stinker.

I take your point on Tyrer, good players and team set ups can make average players look better, but I'd counter with an example of Goulding of greater opportunities at smaller teams enhancing a youngsters apparent quality. On last nights evidence and a couple of other Salford games I've seen recently, he looks a far better player without the burden of expectation at Wigan and stands out more when compared to the lesser quality of player surrounding him IMO.

He gets picked each game for Salford whereas Sam is being 'looked after' by Noble.

From what I have seen in Myler he is a "play to himself" player and your hookers do the "organising". Myler rarely kicks it seems to be exclusive Ratchford on long-kicking duties, and both times against Wigan he disapeared...as do all players sometimes, so that is also irelevent. imo Sam and Myler are too similar to function together - Myler would have been perfect with Barrett and Sam seems more suited to work with an organising type such as (idk I'm struggling to think of one who has played in SL recently...) Tim Smith on his day.