Think all the comments are a bit unfair. Pat at fullback may have resulted in the same outcome. Murphy had to sprint for the bombs, yes pat may have a safer pair of hands but would he have got anywhere near them at the end of the day they were very good good kicks. Plus people need to get over madge, yes he would have played at full back and the strongest side week in week out but would we have seen the amount of youngsters we have this year no, still a work in progress

Mcdermott and Sinfield must have choked on their pre match meal when they saw Wane's choice of full back for this game.

"What should we do with the rookie fullback Bri"
"Errrm............Just bomb the sh*t out of him and knock his confidence"
"Yeah that's what I was thinking boss"

I really feel for Murphy. Looks a decent talent, just not for a play off semi !!!!

Rubbish mate. Richards would have taken up a better position prior to the kicks going up, thus he wouldn't have had to sprint to catch them.

Sinfield kicked to Josh 4 or 5 times in the first half, it is only in the second half he kicks at Murphy with the Leeds fans behind him, tactics probably only made at half time, only very effective.

seemed like a strange decision to throw him in for such a big game after only 1 previous appearance (if that's the case).

to be fair to the lad he looked ok.... yes he dropped a kick... didn't do much else wrong though.

I disagree, Murphy's positioning at fullback is probably better than Richards. Murphy has always been a smart player in that respect.

He did what many fullbacks will do, struggle with well placed kicks by a player with one of the best kicking games in the whole of rugby league. I know Richards has a good reputation as having safe hands but he rarely if ever had to face kicks as difficult as that and under that sort of pressure. They just don't happen that frequently and you need the right combination of excellent kicker and inept pressuring from the defence simply to end up facing a kick like that. Richards has also dropped high bombs before, so it's no guarantee he would have been any better.

In all honesty I would of played Richards fullback but then again I don't blame murphy for not catching the bombs he's inexperienced and they were great kicks. You have to ask why was sinfield allowed to put such great kicks in and the answer is because we never attemped to pressure him even though it was clear he was Leeds main threat.

On another day, Murphy would have wriggled out of the tackle when he made a couple of half breaks right at the start of the game and gone the length of the field to score As it was a couple of very committed tacklers just managed to hold onto him - we would all have been saying what a brilliant brave decision by Wane.

Moving Pat to FB away from his best position on the wing would have been seen by many to be a backwards move, taking our best attacking winger away.

If we had played a little smarter and finished our sets of 6 at the leeds end with a grubber to pen then down their end or force a drop out, or put more pressure on sinfield then maybe Murphy wouldn't have been exposed at the end.

I tell you what Wane did with Murphy right there. He said, "Son, you're this clubs future, I rate you, and I want you involved" What Wigan got there was Murphy saying, "I love this club and it's my future" Wigan have a good young player there who will serve the club well. You might have lost last night but I bet you'll be singing about Murphy for years.

Let's not kid ourselves, had SW put Richards in at fullback he would have had to replace the wing spot with a lesser experienced player (Gelling..etc).

The instruction from Leeds would have been for Sinfield to bomb the $hit out of the winger.

Same result possibly. Great tactics and if only we employed similar (as Richards has arguably the bigger boot)!

Sorry, but what lost us the game was not kicking the penalty we had in their 20, points mean prizes, it wasn't a league game it was knock out rugby, we should have been taking any points we could have got our hands on, hope wane figures this out for next season, Murphy will probably learn more from this loss than he would have a win imo

Agreed!! Just hope he hasn't ruined a young lads career. Ridiculous decision!

The lad was struggling in the first half and seemed to have picked up an injury. Should have been changed at half time and put Richards there especially with the Leeds fans behind us.

Don't blame your young full back for dropping the bomb. Blame the player who gave us the penalty for offside.

Amos Roberts to full back?

I think anybody would have done what Farrell did 5 yards from the try line with Burrow running at you, to be honest Burrow ran straight for Farrell knowing he would be offside, again big players doing crucial things at the right time, Leeds did a lot of that last night and we didnt.

I was waiting for someone to bring this up, just cant believe it has taken until now!

I disagree. Had we done that we'd have knocked on from the kick off and they'd have scored anyway. You can't look at it and say we could have had 2 more points so we should have taken that option when the game from that point of would have panned out in a completely different way.

What lost us the game was having no composure whatsoever and being completely clueless at times, especially when leading with not much time left. The players didn't have a clue what they were supposed to do and messed it up.

Could not agree more, SW contradicts himself in team selections.

SO is not a 9 nor is he a 6 yet SW played him a 9, when TL was injured SO played at 6, he was average at best. Last night again he was played at 9 with Farrel at 13. It takes something away from the strucutre of the team, you could tell when the ball was moved wide it didn't look slick at all and missed SO as a link out wide.

The main issue here is he is playing SO a 9 because MM is suspended hence shuffling the team around, yet when Tomkins was injured he chose to pick Murphy from the U20's at full back and promote from within...he has played one SL game against Bradford to mind - terrible decision on reflection.

Personally I think Pat at Full Back and Thornley on the wing with either Smith or TL at 9 in a game of this magnitude woud have been better. If your going to 'shuffle' the team around then do it and be committed or if his philosphy is 'youth driven' then bring Logan Tomkins in as a specialist Hooker on the bench.

I just think he contradicts himself with his coaching philosophy and tends to go through spells having bringing youth in and then you dont see them for a few games i.e. Crosby, Spencer, L Tomkins.

Either way Murphy dropped a vital bomb from which the winning penalty resulted, I hope this helps Murphy and his development rather than hinders his confidence.

personally i think it had something to do with the wind.

maybe bombing him in the first half in easier conditions may have boosted his confidence had he aught them.
dont think it was a half time decision tbh...think it was pre planned before the kick off.
it worked anyway......but lets not crucify Murphy...Sam would probably messed it up as well

Didnt start this thread to do that mate, all i am saying is that if Wane would have gone with his head and not his heart, putting Richards at full back ESPECIALLY in those rainy, windy conditions we would be making plans for Old Trafford next week.

I think it was massive mistake picking a young Inexperienced lad at fullback in suck a high pressure game. I thought murphy looked very good with ball in hand.

have people forgotten how much less penetrative we were without richards on the wing. also, to put it in real terms, the suggestion is to put richards who is not a fullback and hasnt played as such in over two years at fullback in place of someone whos been regularly playing fullback for two years, regardless of experience, and in addition to this, put a player who is essentially equally as untried as murphy on the wing and not even a winger, where he obviously wouldnt have dropped a kick as murphy did. seriously guys?

There was a possibility to exploit whoever was chosen to fill in. Sinfield could have exploited Thornley's lack of pace by kicking behind him for Jones-Bishop to chase; he could have exploited Gelling's poor positioning or Gelling could have done what he did in the cup game and fail miserably competing for a cross field kick with Jones-Bishop.

He took a risk with a young player who have been pretty much faultless at fullback for the under 20's. Murphy made errors facing kicks that most fullbacks would have trouble with. Tomkins struggled with similar kicks, I remember Amos Roberts struggled with high bombs in a game against Huddersfield.

Murphy would have been much more comfortable had the defence simply done its job and put pressure on the kicker. It was blatantly obvious what they needed to do and it's pretty basic stuff. When a ball is up in the air swirling around it's going to be difficult for any fullback and the job of the defence is to not allow the kicker to be able to put up kicks with all the time in the world.

The biggest fault was the teams failure to put pressure on the kicker after being shown exactly how important that was by Wire in the challenge cup final.

Completely agree. The fact that people are suggesting we would have been in a better position with any other combination is farcical.