If Nsemba picks up a ban all well and good, he could do with a break, same for Thompson Havard and Ellis, leave them out altogether, the only thing at stake next week is very short term bragging rights, we need to be looking towards September now and being in the best possible shape for then.

I think we will have at least the following missing
Cooper
Isa
French
O’Neil
and presumably Smith
I’m obviously assuming that there won’t be anymore injuries or suspensions.

I think that the target for French is Catalan away later in the month.

Cant see Batchelor being banned for the life of me. Knowles will be gone though for sure

Hang on, who are you counting as Hurrell's replacement? I can't come up with any answer to make that make sense that his replacement is doing better. Ben Davies? Blake? Ritson?
Hurrell has been a huge miss

On the bans I think it will just be Smith and Knowles.
I could see Nsemba being banned, but the mitigation is that Bentley was holding onto him. I do believe he will get charged but could fairly easily seeing it grade A and no ban.
If Batchelor is banned then the game truly has gone

The fresh air that he normally occupies. Better defensively anyway

Joking aside though, the answer lies in your reserves. Unfortunately Wellens seems reluctant to play them.

Yes, I think I'd rather play one of the lads' sons than Ben Davies in fairness

It's a strange reluctance given Stephens has arguably been your best prop and Robertson has been a revelation since coming into the team. Factor in the indifferent performances of Davies and Blake (although to be fair he's been better overall at centre than wing) and it seems strange to not at least give Vaughan an extended run.

Never rated Blake. He's a bit of a head-banger.

He’s had a couple of good games and he makes decent metres when he’s coming out of yardage but he’s wildly inconsistent and a massive liability in defence at times. His positives don’t really outweigh his negatives so I wouldn’t be offering him another contract

What like Hiku on Field in the semi final, that even Willie Peters said should have been a red. I don't think what Harry did was worse than that. But hey ho , he plays for Wigan.

Our key tactic is starting our sets off well.

Last year Wardle was the worst at this out of the 4 key players required to do this the way we play the game.

King was the best of the 2 centres at doing this by far.

Wardle is a better centre he’s the top centre in the comp but the devil is in the detail and the sum of the pieces make the whole.

More often than not with King we got a contact win, quick play the ball and an opportunity to get on the front foot, this positive start to our sets invariable meant we were able to finish our sets with attacking kicks rather than down towns out of our own 40.

When we signed Keighren I said we would need to look at those tactics because he simply wouldn’t play that way, and it’s not Wardle’s strongest attribute.

We haven’t looked at the tactics and AK has been average for most of the season. We are trying to turn him into a player he isn’t.

He like Wardle plays best off a platform laid by others on the front foot as we saw at Catalans. He is being asked to lay that platform at Wigan not benefit off it and it isn’t working.

Maybe we were never going to be able to keep King once Powell was sacked but that still doesn’t stop him from being a big miss and an integral part in the way Wigan fundamentally play the game even if he is no Mark Gasnier, he was still very effective in the role he was asked to play at Wigan.

Correct pal

It’s not a key tactic when we are in the opposition half.
If it’s such a key tactic why don’t we sell Wardle offload Keighran and buy/develop 2 centres in the mould of King?
Hang on a minute we’ve just given Marshall a 4 year contract who would probably never get a decent pass from a centre whose main and potentially only attribute is to “make the hard yards”.
Let’s get back to having an Isa or a Bateman at centre.

I don’t dislike King I just dislike the one dimensional nature of the role he’s asked to play.
I’ve said for more years than I care to remember that centre play is probably the hardest position to play well in any rugby team. King is pretty decent in the hard yards bit but pretty lamentable with the more skilful side of the role and isn’t particularly well blessed with pace.
I believe that he’s on an exceptionally high value contract which would mean that if we had signed him then something elsewhere would have to give under the SC constraints. No improved contracts for Smith, Wardle, Havard etc.
3 losses, admittedly 3 shallackings, seems to have led in some quarters due to King going back to Wire. I don’t for one moment put you in that group and I do recollect you saying that we may to consider changing tactics with the arrival of Keighran. King isn’t the reason for our recent downturn it’s a plethora of reasons that Peet, his huge backup support and the players have got to address and address very quickly if we want a top 2 place in the league.

Jesus sometimes you’re hard work, and I fully appreciate I can be too, its all well and good talking about what happenes in the opposition half but King was one of if not the key reason we were winning the field position battles.

It’s great talking about what happened in the opposition half but it doesn’t matter if you don’t consistently get there.

Marshall and Miski are excellent at this also again they contribute massively to the field position cause but it’s noticeable Miski isn’t having the same effect as he’s not running off Kings contact and quick play the balls.

It’s often said by coaches you finish sets how you start them.

We now have 2 centres who don’t make those hard yard runs, although Wardle has improved.

I would 100% guarantee all things being equal first option would have been to retain King if we could have made that deal happen, also there is less reliance on centres to pass to the wingers these days as the final pass more often comes from the fullback, having a centre that creates space too though is obviously an added bonus and Wardle is certainly one of those. If you want to claim otherwise then Miski scored 27 tries outside King and he only played for 3/4s of the season, he currently has 9 outside Keighran.

Also who is saying 3 losses has anything to do with King going back to Warrington, what people are identify is we are weaker for not having him, it’s been obviously that way all year. We have replaced one of our key metre makers out of our half with someone who can’t do it and we are playing the same way.

King is a huge miss this year, I do rate AK he was great at Catalans however he had the Wardle role there with others (Legurre sp) playing the grafters role. We need to support him more if we are going to get the best out of him though and change style we need more carries from his secondrow earlier in the tackle count, but again this is an issue given Isa would normally be the perfect player to slip into that role but is obviously out for the year.

Hard work?? It’s a difference of opinion. I genuinely respect your opinion it doesn’t mean that I have to agree with it. From your posts I suspect you are or have worked in RL coaching so I always absorb your posts and try to look outside of my own instincts. On this we just don’t agree. It’s not the end of the world we are both pretty encamped but
I do agree that we are missing Isa and we need more support from the second row. For me we were short from day one of the season in the SR particularly when you look at the number of props that we have on the books.

I didn’t hear much malaise when we won the WCC or the WC so I’m a little perplexed that a lot of fans are now saying that the primary reason for the team’s recent displays can be traced back almost solely to the absence of King
My thoughts are not just of the players skill set but also the cost of that player which others just choose to ignore.
The next few weeks will tell us if we are as good as some believe or maybe it’s just a reminder that life throws problems at you all the time and it’s how we respond that will tell us how good we really are. I still wouldn’t bet against us getting to the GF despite losing O’Neil, isa and possibly(?) Cooper for the season.
Interesting times Jon.

I meant the hard work comment in jest/slightly tongue in cheek and edited it having a dig at myself too but you must have already clicked respond.

I mentioned on here when we signed AK we would need to change our game to get the best out of him, not sure if Isa being out has caused the lack of change or if we just thought we could transfer him in as like for like, but we cannot.

I’m actually at the point now where, I do think ZE is worth a run a centre even if AK is fit, which I didn’t think I would be saying even a week ago, AK though probably needs to play 6 whilst we have the issues at halfback that we do till French returns.

All form goes out if the window this week and if we can get French and Field back fit at the business end of the season we will be there or there abouts when it comes to the title.

My two pence on the subject seeing as I probably started all this a few weeks back



It would probably make the whole thing clearer if it wasn't centred (pun intended) on King himself. What we miss is someone to make effective early carries on that side. It doesn't really matter if it's King, Keighran or someone else. Miski is far better running in tandem rather than trying to do it himself and I think his stats and performances back that up.

I don't think anyone is suggesting King was some kind of superstar or that he's even in the same league as Wardle. He also has obvious limitations elsewhere in his game. However, he worked well in our systems and with the personnel we have. The right hand side has been far less effective in both attack and defence without him.

FWIW Dupree's form has fallen off a cliff too IMO and his fitness seems to have dropped also. I will say that Walters has looked slightly better recently though without looking great.

I haven’t got a clue how Keighran would go at 6 but injuries will now probably dictate that Eckersley goes to centre and Keighran to 6. Not sure if Keighran has a kicking game but it will be a huge bonus if he has. Saints will be depleted so for me it’s probably up to the senior players to drag out a winning performance and throw our current form out of the window.

The question there is AK fit ? I'm not having him being outpaced by Rhyse Martin

I think Keighran played a few games at 6 for the Roosters, didn't he?

Yeah, something looked wrong there.