Lam was out coached by Watson as he was in the playoffs.

Watson has got his bargain basement players playing as a team. He lost his best player to us in the off season and his side still looked more of a team than ours.

Our team with its marquee signings and that back line was playing one man rugby up the middle and Lam did NOTHING to change it for the entire 40 minutes of the second half. He clearly had no tactical change to make nor instructions to send on to change how we were attacking to test Salford’s defence.

I think he’s relying on individual bits of skill from the likes of French to pull games like that off. It worked last week against HKR but most times I doubt it will.

Im wondering could the virus of affected the players concentration? It is mine, im thinking about it an awful lot. Dont under estimate the effects of what is happening at the moment.

Everybody just seems to want to get done what they have to and get home and lock themselves out of the way, Is it possible that Salford were just a bit more focused on the job in hand?

No.

I think there could be an element of truth to this,both games weren’t great spectacles where they this week,but funnily enough I thought it was Salford the affected by the blight of weird passing not Wigan.

But that said Lam was yet again out smarted by Watson I do hope he’s given the chance at Wigan I like the rugby his aides set out to play.

Spot on, but with some, it always blame the Coach.

If it affected our players, it also affected Salford's. It's no excuse.

Our one out attack is not lams fault as it wasnt wanes. John Winder is our attack coach and our attack is dreadful compared to lots of teams in the league.

I’m firmly in the club that says Lam isn’t the man to take us forward. We scrapped to wins v 12 man Warrington, Toronto, Hull KR and FC. They weren’t pretty. We’ve a raft of excellent players in this team and yet we see week in week out a failure to capitalise on that. Honestly I’m struggling to remember games where we’ve played excellently under Lam and I’m sick to the back teeth of hearing “we will learn lessons” or the classic “we trained well”.

As others have pointed out from minute 11 we struggled, though up until the 2nd half the scoreboard didn’t reflect it and he made no tactical changes or decisions that would trigger a response. Instead he subbed G Burgess for Tommy, kept Smith on the bench until the 50th minute (IIRC) and was happy to watch us disintegrate into that mess.

For me he can go, it all feels very Brian Noble to me, in the sense that we’re picking up wins but should be better and when we lose we collapse completely. But I do sign up to the notion that it’s far too early to be calling for his head and a wild over reaction to what is only our second loss.

Nothing to do with being out coached, more to do attitude, lack of concentration and making stupid mistakes like that of French not getting to a ball and giving Salford a gift try and others falling off tackles which also led to tries.

How can anyone blame any Coach for that?

p.s. The bargain basement also includes Dan Sarginson who you were always calling when he was at Wigan.

Agree,
I can't blame the coach for a missed penalty from 20 metres out close to the posts or Harry Harry Smiths awful attempt on Evalds. Then there was the poor Powell kick which led to Salfords equalising try and Frenchs reluctance to drop on the ball when it was on the ground.
=#FF0000Who missed the tackle on Williams break which led to their match winning try?
Finally well done to Dan Sarginson, rubbished by many on here who gave a very similar performance to most in his time at Wigan. Funny init?

The loss of Bibby hurt us more that it should have and maybe the coach should have handled that better?

edit, just watched it again.
Really poor by Burgess, Byrne and Havard.

If you brought Sarginson back who would you drop to accommodate him? Gildart? Hardaker?
Or would you move Hardaker to FB and drop French?

A good athlete but never a quality centre.
Great work rate but offers very little elsewhere.

I suspect he was offloaded to accommodate French which if that was the case then it was a shrewd piece of business

Oh come on Ruddy if we were bottom of the league making those mistakes it’d be the coaches fault. How’s it any different because we’re towards the top? If anything that makes it more inexcusable. Lam is ultimately at fault for our errors. Attitude is down to the coach, if it’s not right; out they go no matter who they are. The coach is supposed to drive forward standards and from where I can see, and many others, he’s lacking woefully in that area. It’s the same old talk from him, both after a scrappy win and a disgraceful loss. There doesn’t tend to be anything in between other than the odd excellent game (Huddersfield away for example). It’s always “we’ll learn”, “we’re getting better”, “we trained well” or “we had a poor attitude”. How many times is he going to roll out those excuses and be let off the hook? When are we actually going to improve to a standard where we’re producing week in week out consistently?

I suspect never. Lam isn’t a good enough as a Head Coach. He may make a brilliant assistant but a head coach he is not. The sooner IL realised that the better. He should be sounding out a new Head Coach in 2021 now IMO.

I can see your point but I would rather have kept Sarginson than Bibby AND Hankinson.

Lam played a forwards game and it back fired and not for the first time, we didn’t use our backs correctly, I had almost forgotten Manfredi was playing.

Last night it had everything to do with tactics and the signs have been evident throughout last season and this.

How Burgess keeps getting selected is beyond me.

It's haunted us since Madge left & funnily enough it was him and his methods who instilled it in us.

A coach doesn't miss tackles, but he definitely sets the standards & deals with it when those standards aren't met.

I think last night showed how paper-thin our cover at centre actually is.

Gildart will presumably return at some point (though how long we'll then have him for before he scoots off for his much anticipated adventure in Australia is anyone's guess, and whether he even bothers trying is also a question), but then Hardaker tweaks a hamstring or whatever, and suddenly we're down to two men who offer absolutely nothing.

Let's be honest, while Bibby and Hankinson may work hard, there is no attack threat from either of them. They are less than average in that department, and having them on the field both at the same time is a recipe for disaster.

Watson game plan was to keep Hastings and French out of the game and it worked, shroud coaching.

I’d be ok with Sarginson as cover for centre and FB but for me he is too limited as a first choice centre
Hankinson has a decent boot but offers very little else.
Bibby seems underpowered for a centre and so far a bit disappointing

A pity that Worthington didn’t kick on

And so it begins...

Good player decides that he wants to try his hand in the best league in the world and the Wigan fans then start to turn on him.

Gildart has been excellent for us and IF he decides to move on then it will be a well deserved shot at the top. Also notice the IF - nothing has been said or decided and I for one won't be bagging him either way.

He might as well just leave now tho as whatever he does from now on won't be good enough.

+1

Yes, agree about Gildart, he always gives 100% and I'm looking forward to getting him back. If we still have a comp by then, which looks doubtful.

You can have the best tactics in the world but if you have not got the right balance in the squad as a result of the club not getting better players from outside to complement the best young players from the Academy, you end up in situation like Leeds have been in in recent seasons but appears to now have been corrected with better signings.

A few weeks ago, I questioned the signings of Bibby and especially forwards like Burgess and Clarke, but was shouted down by others when I said they were poor signings and not up to Wigan Standard.

Add to them, Navarrete, Nuuaussala, Pettybourne,Tautai in the last few seasons and you have got to questioned who makes the decisions on who we sign from outside, especially when the players I have mentioned have been signed under two different Head Coaches.

The only time that a Coach seemed to have his own way on signings was when Maguire was the Coach and the reason for that may have been a condition of his contract to come to Wigan. From the time he left and with the odd exception or so, the quality of players signed from outside the club, especially forwards has gone downhill.

Unless Wigan sign some better and more top class forwards, especially from down under, the club will continue to have inconsistent performances and poor results like Friday.

Lam may go, but will it be any different for any new Head Coach at Wigan when we do not have the right balance of experience and youth in the present squad.

Especially, when they inherit what is already at the club and may not have any say on who the club sign?

You do raise a good point Ruddy. IIRC Wane didn’t want Hardaker and a few weeks later Wane was resigning at seasons end, perhaps reading too much into that but it certainly fits into your theories.

At the minute, though I don’t have any complaints about any of our youngsters, I think we risk being too youthful in the pack and that’s showing in games where we’re being beaten by more experienced packs. In the long run it might just benefit us but equally it could go the other way.

Can't say I was arguing with Wane over a lack of enthusiasm for Hardaker, but fortunately he has been very good so far and a credit to the team. We certainly haven't been served well in recent years by forwards especially from the NRL, though.