I dare say he committed himself to us when there were no other SL options available, coaches far better than the ones on here have let him go.
To say he's committed himself to us is all well and good but he needs to be capable of playing the position as a whole not just the bits that he enjoys.
If at the end of this coming season we can compare his stats and he's on the plus side for tries scored/created against tries conceded due to planting his feet on one on ones, making no atttempt to tackle and not being in the vacinity when tackles need to be made by the fullback then I will be happy with him, but although I don't have the stats I'm pretty confident that he didn't achieve that last season.

and to your point exactly, a pretty good coach is keeping him despite having at least two players in the team that could cover his position in Cockayne and Sykes.
I assume Agar sees more positives than negatives.

As I said on an earlier post I think that Sykes as a defensive f/b would be the one player that would be worse than Mathers, unless we have no other options on the wing I can't understand why Cockayne hasn't been given the chance at f/b because I think he would be a better option both in attack and defence.

If Sykes is worse in defense than Mathers then I must have seen the wrong player getting back and stopping some certain trys against us will have to watch the DVDs again.I would keep Sykes at 6 as when he moved to 6 it made it so Smith could play his natural game and thats when we started to tick as a team.Mathers can win you a game and just as well give one away as I have said before the plus side outweighs the minus but only just and who else is out there thats better and available.
Lets be honest we aint a club that can say we want and the player will come running.

What about these two Aaron Murphy and m.dailymercury.com.au/news/hard- ... s/1700655/

What about these two Aaron Murphy and m.dailymercury.com.au/news/hard- ... s/1700655/

Looks like 2013's scapegoat has already been chosen.

It baffles me that some people still think they've got a better eye for who should play where than the Head Coach; given that he's paid to do this job and that his success is very much results driven, why on earth would he insist on playing someone in a given position if he knew that there were better options available? It just doesn't make sense!

Mathers is the best fb available to us at this time - if he weren't, why would he be playing there?!

Quote ="victarmeldrew"What about these two Aaron Murphy and m.dailymercury.com.au/news/hard- ... s/1700655/'" Murphy is excellent in defence and not bad under the high ball but what you may gain in defence would be outweighed by what would be lost in attack. Mathers is excellent coming into the line and his passing skills are also pretty good. He is the best FB we've had in many, many seasons and yet so many folk want to knock the guy, amazing.

Quote ="victarmeldrew"What about these two Aaron Murphy and m.dailymercury.com.au/news/hard- ... s/1700655/'" Murphy is excellent in defence and not bad under the high ball but what you may gain in defence would be outweighed by what would be lost in attack. Mathers is excellent coming into the line and his passing skills are also pretty good. He is the best FB we've had in many, many seasons and yet so many folk want to knock the guy, amazing.

I wouldn't dispute that Sykes covers back when breaks are made, but some of the breaks made are players going through his weak online defence, if that were at f/b it would have the same result as Mathers, and as I said earlier it would be madness to take him away from stand off anyway because that might unsettle Smith.

For goodness sake give it a rest everyone.

Quote ="victarmeldrew"What about these two Aaron Murphy and m.dailymercury.com.au/news/hard- ... s/1700655/'" You mean two who decided to leave

Quote ="victarmeldrew"What about these two Aaron Murphy and m.dailymercury.com.au/news/hard- ... s/1700655/'" You mean two who decided to leave

now can we lock it ?

just like to say a couple of things if after wrencats pleading this thread is locked, if i am allowed to disagree with his view that mathers is the best fullback weve had in years in my opinion he is one of the worst,and i trust red white and blue is clued up on why their decisions were made not just his opinions or what hed like to believe

We obviously have different opinions of the player but, the main point I was triying to make, is that having completed our recruitment for the season, apart from maybe an additional forward, why the hell are folk bagging members of the squad.
Of course this is a public forum and everyone is fully entitled to their opinion but, as RM has the no 1 jersey this season we, as supporters of Wakefield Trinity, should be supporting the team and the players within it.
If he has a good season, which I personally think he will, we can applaud and if its a cr@p season then maybe he will get some stick but, to what purpose does it serve to slate any of the current squad before the season kicks off ?

Please list the full backs we've had in recent years that you think are better than RM and the reasons as to why you think they were better and where Ritchie falls short of them, as I would be more than happy to counter that.
IMHO the FB position is always under the most scrutiny from fans and when a mistake is made by them it is more obvious, however when they do things right or even well it goes typically unnoticed, I would say that although not the best FB in SL he is by no way near the worst and as had been said by many he is probably the best we could attract to the club at this moment in time. I disagree that Ben and Sykes would do a better job and the only one I might contemplate putting there would be Smith (Lee of course) but only if RM was injured or not available, as has also been said by a few on here his positives (attacking options/passing/organisation & pace) far outweigh the one negative (That he isn't 100% committed in the tackle) however that negative shouldn’t be an issue if the 12 blokes stood in front of him do their job properly

il tell you what my main grouse is with mathers is that he as been put in the comfort zone given a two year contract with no oppossition to the fullback position .No i dont think price or lee smith would do a better job , as someone as pointed out price although did a good job for us is probably the worst defender on the team and my opinion for what its worth is that lee smith will never reach the hights tht some on here think hes capable of . But hey im sorry that i cant believe that so manyon here think these players are good it must be me.Like most i watched the highlights of the boxing day game mathers linked up well in the collis try and backed up well cowlings kick ,but did folk wonder like me where he was for the leeds trys,il tell you nowhere to be seen.The try the young fullback scored in the corner he was stood at th side of the sticks ,one try he collided with the ref i can assure you the ref got the worst of the collision but while he was on his feet blowing his whistle and pointing to a try our fullback was laid down appealing .im sorry if i was the only one who noticed these things but thats what i saw and thats what im pointing out

Please enlighten us on who you would have that's available?

Who is this price you talk of ?

I don't buy that - unless you're suggesting that he is so poor as to be only worthy of pay per play deal, which is just ridiculous.

Given that you don't rate Lee Smith either, who exactly would you have at fb for WTW, given the restrictions we have on our wage bill?

So not only can you not let me know who and why there have been better FB's than RM at wakey in recent years, you don't even know who's playing for us now, Who is Price?

i think you know i meant sykes i really do know who plays for us and i stick by my points like em or not

Think he means Sykes?

TBH I haven't a clue what you're on about but at least we both have something in common



Can't see how you can get Price and Sykes mixed up, the only leter in both names is an E and I think you may have had one to many E's

Try scorer your views regarding Mathers and how a full back should play come accross as quite old fashioned. Most teams have now coached a more attacking style into the full back role and probably sacrificed some of the defensive qualities in doing this. You post as if he should match up to someone like Radlinski but there hasn't been a full back like him in Superleague and i doubt we will ever see anyone who can attack and defend like him. Get real Mathers is doing a good job for us and unless we now have a billionaire backing the team we are not going to find better. I have seen Sykes miss a few one and one's letting them through first line of defense but is doing a good job where he is so wouldn't move him either. As someone mentioned earlier Mathers is not the quickest but think he gets his rugby brain into gear very fast. His quick thinking for the try scored off Cowling made it look so simple. This is not an easy thing to do week after week but he does this really well.

supercat i certainly respect your post ,after watching our game for many years with all its changes your right , iam probably a bit old fashioned in how i expect players should play the game,but the kind of game i talk about still exists in australia with fullbacks attacking and defending yea i know they make mistakes sometimes. Anyway thanks for the sensible post and we will see what happens this season. Sorry being a manual worker all my life means my keyboard skills are not up to some on here il try and improve

Jeepers!



Is Mathers the best FB in the world - no.
Is Mathers the best FB in SL - no.
Are any of our players the best in the world - no.
Are any of our players the best in SL - no.

Perhaps we should just chuck the lot away and have done for - or, we could accept them for what and who they are, accept that they pull on the RW&B and generally give their all for us; get on well with each other; work well with our coach and were, collectively, good enough to gain a top 8 place and win 7 on the trot - including beating Leeds and Saints who certainly do have players who are 'better' than many of ours.

On balance, I'll take what we have; get behind them and enjoy the ride!

Bring it on!