Surely after 2 years back he should be better than 'potentially' a good player. And I still say he goes down too easy.

but he hasn't been back two years. He's been back playing regular rugby for 6 months.

He shows signs of what he is capable of, but he is so out of shape it is ridiculous.


He is 5 yards off the pace, but did tonight show signs of his potential.

Worth a further year but needs a massive off season.

Thought he signed two years ago and we nursed him back all last season

Exactly.

He's played about 5 first grade rugby league games in about 4 years so abit of rustyness is understandable.

He's never going to be Gary Connolly in sheer effort and guts terms but he went well tonight.

we did, but he hasn't been able to play matches for long periods of that time. I think it was close to him being 2 years without playing a match, thats a long period to come back from and takes a while.

He should be fitter by know, i'm not denying that, but i still think he'll be a goo dplayer for us. If we got a proper conditioner in he would work wonders.

from what i can count he bombed at least 3 try scoring chances, and with his size he goes down to easily.

They need to give him some tough love and flog him in pre season. He needs to be running up and down winter hill all off season to get him in shape.

People around Rivvy should be sick of the sight of Feka, Riddell and Pryce come January next year.

'"

I thought he was pretty good tonight. If somebody takes ur legs from behind, it doesnt matter how big you are, which is what happened a number of times in the first half.

He also put some real big hits in, in defence especially in the first half. He was up against Tony Clubb tonight, who's form got him in the England squad for the international the other week and I never noticed him at all.

keep the faith and with a bit of patience, we might just have the best English strike centre for many a year

I knew he would get slated for a couple of those. The first one was an excellent text book tackle to bring him down.

Took his own try well, and looked off the pace for the other.

Defended very well tonight put in some massive hits. When he took it in from a 1 up drive (which was not enough granted) he looked a handfull.

The key to him is brining in someone to get him in shape, its clear he is not at the moment.

have faith in him, for an 18 stone he is immense

I thought he had a decent game as well, he seemed to bring some of the stuff he does in the reserves into the first team.

Not sure if it was because of Karl or not but I thought Amos Roberts had one of his better games tonight.

i agree, he showed flashes tonight of what hes capable of and another 12 months will make or break his wigan career. he needs to train his ass off in the off season and another half dozen games will improve his sharpness. a previous post says he bummed three chances, the first was a fantastic tackle low and hard, the others were face passes to roberts which he got in the way of. match sharpness will sort that. i think karl is a project worth investing in, at least for another year

Fully agreed.

He's great. Was starved of posession. Especially in the 2nd half. Someone pass to him ffs.

There's potential there certainly but clearly lacking fitness.

His demaneour will mean he will struggle to get on the right side of most Wigan fans.

I don't think its match fitness he lacks, but playing in the same team week in week out. His timing was off on a couple of occasions which meant the ball went to ground, with regularly playing with the same guys instead of the reserves this guy will be great for us.. I have said on other topic that on his "reserves" form he deserves a chance and I think he took it well. Give him a few games in the first team to get used to playing and he will be great for us.

He is a feka in the centres.. well done karl keep it up...

They did and he couldn't catch it.

I agree he does go down too easily though.

He went ok for me too.
Two of the "chances" he missed the passes were behind him. One hit him on the back of the head.
He's a real handful and had three men tackling him all night.
A good player to have in the squad and worth his place IMO.
Noble said he looked good in the 1st half but tired in the 2nd. BN put it down to not playing at that pace on a regualr basis and will get better the more game time he has.

The balls he dropped were shocking passes intended as face balls to the wing when the play was not needed.

I haven't watched it on sky so, so I was caught in the emotion of the game to notice everything but the guy is a monster and like you said father ted... he attracts three players each time therefore gaps are bound to come...

Two weeks is a long time in Rugby... just as well really, or Id be getting out the prozac......

He's another young back player just like Phelps, Tomkins and Ainscough who have a hell of a lot of potential and a hell of a lot more to come from each of them.

I really hope with a new coach the four players I’ve mentioned above can come on leaps and bounds and really set up a good young spine to our team with Tommy L in there also.

Career with Wigan over then. We have been shocking at getting the bigger players to the right level of fitness and weight recently.

Dave

It's been a big problem hasn't it.

We need somebody to give a couple of the players a kick up the ar*e on the fitness front. They're good players the likes of Feka and Riddell imo but they need to work on their fitness.

It's another issue that comes down to attitudes.