Father Ted wrote:The forwards he's got are not good enough.
He can identify, motivate, plan, coach and have great tactics but if the players in that pack aren't up to it then he's wasting his time.
We lose the forwards battle almost every week and that's where and why we need new players. Only two forwards can break a tackle, Feka & Hock.
The rest haven't broken a tackle hardly all season.
Noble needs to bring in players that can do the job he and we need doing. Why he hasn't brought them in already I don't know, nor do I understand why.
Wigan have proved that they can play well as a team but do so very inconsistently and have done for some time under Noble, this is more down to motivation than the quality of players we have. Our biggest underperformer has been Fielden who has played with Noble before but Noble can't get the best out of him. If you look at the props that are performing well at other clubs have a look at how deep they receive the ball and how much speed and momentum they have when they hit the defence, then have a look at how flat Wigan play, then try telling me that Wigan have good tactics. Teams like Saints and Leeds when they are attacking well are able to alternate between a very fast flat line and players running angles from deep, we consistently play flat rugby.
In attack Leeds showed us time and time again the benefits of playing with a deep line. The right hand side of Leeds attack pushed forward and there was a line of players across the pitch at an angle to their left wing which was 20m behind the right. Our defence was naturally drawn forward and we seemed unable to keep a straight line, so we too were at an angle, meaning (i) bigger gaps between our defenders for the attack to break through (ii) loads of space behind our right hand side inviting 40/20's... poor tactics again from Wigan.
If it was the younger less experienced players making silly mistakes and conceding penalties then it would not be so obvious that lack of motivation is a factor in how we are playing. But how many times over the last few seasons have we seen Hock dropping the ball, Fielden dropping the ball, Lockers niggling after the tackle is complete?? All these things contributing factors to teams having much more possession than us, yet a young developing player like Goulding makes a few errors and we never see him again. How many second chances was Mathers given before Noble (or even IL??) saw the light and got rid? Nobody but Noble can be blamed for this, the majority of decent coaches would have ensured we weren't stuck with him by making sure he had played enough games but Noble didn't. The majority of teams would have been happy to put Richards at FB and bring Ainscough in for a few games to give him some experience which would have benefited him this year but Noble didn't.
Last but not least in terms of bad tactics I don't know exactly how many times Noble decided to play with only three props but 2 occasions immediately spring to mind... Hull KR away, we got hammered, our props look knackered, again we were playing too flat and their defence was taking more out of our props than we were taking out of them... So we do well in the playoffs, partly in my opinion because Bradford and Catalans suffered from poor form at the end of the season and we were able to do well without it taking too much out of the players and what does Noble do again?? 3 props!!!
Sorry but the 'its not Noble's team' argument doesn't wash with me anymore. Noble must go, the sooner the better!
