Wigan Warriors • Rumours and signings v9
Too much too soon being asked of the young forwards. I look at Ollie Partington and still see a kid but we’re having to treat him like he’s a seasoned veteran and that’s because behind him we’ve got Havard, Byrne, Smithies, Pearce-Paul, Shorrocks, O’Neil etc. All of them should be getting dipped in and out but they play week after week after week (when fit) and that’s because there’s not only a lack of experienced depth but also a lack of quality in the experienced front rowers we do have. If we look back at guys like Lee Mossop and Liam Farrell coming through in 2010, they had Coley, Fielden, Feka (not perfect but served a purpose) and Lockers in the centre of the field. It’s chalk and cheese to having Singleton and Tony Clubb and not much else around the middle. It has a knock on effect on all the young forwards, regardless of them being props or backrowers because they’re being asked to pick up the slack.
That sounds like a defence of Lam but he’s culpable IMO of throwing all these juniors in together when he doesn’t have to. He’s refused to pick Clark and Bullock at points, when even if their form had been poor, it still would’ve given the juniors a week out of the fire. A defence some people will use with Lam in terms of how successful his time here has been, is that he’s given loads of debuts out to young players but the way in which he’s flogged some of them may have done Irreparable damage to their careers IMO. Wane rarely had top class prop forwards but what he could manage was to get a tune out of the ones he did have. He won Grand Finals with guys like Dudson (the overweight version), Crosby, Navarette and Tautai, who are hardly a whose who of prop forwards. It’s that failure of Lam to get more from guys like Clark and Bullock (and even Flower before them) that has hurt us more than anything.
That sounds like a defence of Lam but he’s culpable IMO of throwing all these juniors in together when he doesn’t have to. He’s refused to pick Clark and Bullock at points, when even if their form had been poor, it still would’ve given the juniors a week out of the fire. A defence some people will use with Lam in terms of how successful his time here has been, is that he’s given loads of debuts out to young players but the way in which he’s flogged some of them may have done Irreparable damage to their careers IMO. Wane rarely had top class prop forwards but what he could manage was to get a tune out of the ones he did have. He won Grand Finals with guys like Dudson (the overweight version), Crosby, Navarette and Tautai, who are hardly a whose who of prop forwards. It’s that failure of Lam to get more from guys like Clark and Bullock (and even Flower before them) that has hurt us more than anything.
Statistics: Posted by NickyKiss — Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:54 pm — Replies 20924 — Views 4051586