Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Sun Oct 29, 2017 11:46 pm  

Escare at #1 for me (and we regain a kicker)

Sam in the halves (probably at #6, to allow George to go back to being a #7)

Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Sun Oct 29, 2017 11:47 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

1-Escare
6-Tomkins (Williams at 7)
9-Leuluai

Thats what should happen, but I doubt it will.

Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Mon Oct 30, 2017 3:40 am  

Does anyone have a sense as to what Shaun Wane and Ian Lenagan think about the choice? Have they offered any clues?

Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Mon Oct 30, 2017 7:08 am  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

Does anyone have a sense as to what Shaun Wane and Ian Lenagan think about the choice? Have they offered any clues?

Wane has a history of saying “it’s x’s job to win the shirt back”, so I’d guess Tomkins will start the season at FB and Escare will have to show he’s better than him somehow.

Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Mon Oct 30, 2017 10:11 am  

Like others, I'd like to see Sam return to the halves, but if it's a straight choice between the two, then it's still Tomkins by a distance for me.

Escare was playing very well before his injury, but still nowhere near as effective as ST for me, even if he's a different player to what he was.

Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:12 am  

My unpopular opinion of the day.

How good Escare was for us has been largely overrated. He looked good because he is fast, but he doesn't have the creative capabilities of Tomkins from the fullback position when he joins the line.

Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:26 pm  

JWarriors wrote:

My unpopular opinion of the day.

How good Escare was for us has been largely overrated. He looked good because he is fast, but he doesn't have the creative capabilities of Tomkins from the fullback position when he joins the line.

Escare was better than i thought he would be but no where as creative as Tomkins can be from the back. Like a previous poster maybe look at Escare at 7 he has a good boot on him and could do a Burrows type role for Wigan. Lualuai was good for the Kiwis at 9 but Mcllurom had a very good game for Ireland. Plenty of options around hooker and half its just getting the right balance

Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Mon Oct 30, 2017 12:33 pm  

stpatricks wrote:

Escare was better than i thought he would be but no where as creative as Tomkins can be from the back.

Thats exactly why Escare's time at Wigan thus far has been overrated. In reality we got him because Catalans no longer wanted him, and people weren't expecting much. He was good (I'm not saying otherwise), but Tomkins offered much more. The reason some people don't see it like this is because we expected a lot more from Tomkins, and he gave us less than our initial expectations. Whereas Escare exceeded (his much lower) expectations and took us by surprise.

Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Mon Oct 30, 2017 1:17 pm  

stpatricks wrote:

Escare was better than i thought he would be but no where as creative as Tomkins can be from the back. Like a previous poster maybe look at Escare at 7 he has a good boot on him and could do a Burrows type role for Wigan. Lualuai was good for the Kiwis at 9 but Mcllurom had a very good game for Ireland. Plenty of options around hooker and half its just getting the right balance

Escare isn't creative enough...... so stick him in the key creative position in the team?

Re: Would you pick Tomkins or Escare at full back for 2018? : Mon Oct 30, 2017 2:40 pm  

JWarriors wrote:

Thats exactly why Escare's time at Wigan thus far has been overrated. In reality we got him because Catalans no longer wanted him, and people weren't expecting much. He was good (I'm not saying otherwise), but Tomkins offered much more. The reason some people don't see it like this is because we expected a lot more from Tomkins, and he gave us less than our initial expectations. Whereas Escare exceeded (his much lower) expectations and took us by surprise.

This is exactly how I see it. There's a definite loss of pace there, but I can see Sam developing into a much better version of Luke Dorn in his time at Cas. Not the quickest over a sprint, but has the brain & guile to be very dangerous, and can play a bigger role in organising the team than he did in his early 20s.

That said, Escare definitely contributed more at full back last year than Tommy did at 7, so moving Sam into the halves is probably still my preferred option.