Wouldn’t have Philbin in that team he as been really poor for 2 seasons now.

I still hold out hope for King, Currie, Philbin. I know it may be naive, but there you go.

Please think again if you are putting Philbin anywhere near that team.

If Joe wants a Powell style drink I’ll tell him how much of an embarrassment he is now.

How is Powell still picking Philbin who is clearly shot of confidence? Not only is he picking him he is putting him on the end of some ‘slick’ inside 10m crash balls where he is failing miserably. Surely Robson or Butler both offer more than Philbin at the minute? For his own sake he needs a spell in the reserves.

“Wigan had first refusal. I had an honest chat with them, and said that I was happy with what I achieved at Wigan, I grew up watching them and I love them - I always did and I always will.“ - George Williams 2021

I've rarely if ever been more embarassed watching a team. That second half was a disgrace. Falling off tackles left and right, them lot tip toeing through us like we weren't even there half the time, no decent pair of hands in the bloody building on our side. And the worst thing is Wigan basically stopped playing at 55 minutes. They practically stopped trying to score. Its like they were adults playing against children and didn't want to make us cry. Absolutely miserable.

Curries maybe. The other two have become your worst players and not even SL standard….

Correct. King is OK for scoring tries against toulouse and Salford, but any half decent team expose his shocking defensive frailties. Every coach watching last night will know exactly what to do when they play us.

Sadly, we’re miles off. Tough two weeks coming up. Leeds, Wakefield, Hull and Salford after that will see us desperate for 4 wins unless we can do the unthinkable and get something from Saints and Catalan.

I think it’s really difficult to come out of this spell. The atmosphere is hostile, the players look disengaged and we’re obviously a lesser team than what we were last season.

The only signs of hope are the kids, although Wrench got dropped, Dean got unjustly hooked in the second half (i think, unless someone can update on Dean being injured) and Longstaff is on the naughty step following Hull. There seems to be willingness to put them in but at the same time happy to take the easy decision to sit them out when a difficult conversation is to be had.

Theres some suggestion on twitter that Dean got pulled as he received a scratch to his eye on that kick off.

Riley Dean didn't look right towards the end of the first half. He was rubbing his eye too so probably something in that.

I. Hope he's alright, we look far better with him in the halves, especially on our last tackle plays.

This season for Wire now should be all about the younger guys you’ve mentioned.

Give them game time, support them even when they make a few errors.

Get rid of a few passengers at the end of the year.

For example everyone on here seems to rate Longstaff but he can’t get in the team, yet Jason Clark played.

What’s the point? Even if Clark is slightly better right now, the long term interest would be to play the young guy who has a load of improvement in him.

This is in no way trying to put a shine on last night, but 2nd half when it went to rat , Billy showed he had a few tricks in his bag, that chip over and the solomona-esque one handed off load

Yes he had an assist for the Mautatia try, He offers something a little different. I expect him to improve as he gets fitter.

You may get lucky as you are playing Saints between semi and final of CC and get one of their lovely 'gift' games, like Toulouse and Cas have

Highlights here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0bWxQ2CCfc

Highlights here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0bWxQ2CCfc

The same old story tells us that our problem is defence in general play. We are pretty good with last ditch defence ,but in general play we are being marched up field too easily because our ptb defence is soft & very pedestrian. Contrast that with ptb defence of successful ,winning teams & it's easy to see why Wigan & Saints can go the length of the field on a set of six. At times we are lucky to make 30 yards before the handover or panic sets in. That style of rushed defence might appear dubious at times but it works & is obviously within the ref's interpretation of the rules.
Our attack is decent ,we are scoring tries without big bruising forwards ,& instead ,by letting the ball do the work by spreading it through hands. Defence really can win games because a good team gets the ball back in a part of the field best suited to itself.

Quote ="Wire XIII"I think you have the wrong player here? Cant see him.at fault.for any of the tries'" Have a look at 3m 52 seconds of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0bWxQ2CCfc

Quote ="Wire XIII"I think you have the wrong player here? Cant see him.at fault.for any of the tries'" Have a look at 3m 52 seconds of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0bWxQ2CCfc

I agree with you. The issue is the coach will be scrapping for his job, so it won’t happen. If he would have done it after the Wakefield game, when he said he was bumping heads with people then I think the fans may have given him the benefit of the doubt, but he has now gone 5 league games since that outburst, picking (when available) the same players and getting our best performance without the three front line pivots.

He can’t now say (now the season has already gone, realistically) that it’s not his fault because it’s a development season. Especially when he’s dropping Wrench and Longstaff at the first sign of an error but keeping Holmes, Williams, King, Philbin in the team.

The coach needs to get a grip, needs to get this group to play with a bit of flaming desire. Even if they don’t win, the need to turn up and get stuck in. If he can’t do that, I’m sorry but it’s not going to work out.

Some thoughts on yesterdays game, apologies if they've been mentioned on numerous occasions. Footwear - were we playing with a mix cross ply and radial boots? The times we had a player slip over, or be off balance and unable to tackle, must have looked comical to any neutrals. Were finding it difficult to defend as it is without being hampered by inappropriate footwear. Perhaps, flags in the club shop could be replaced by swan whistles as a money spinner.

Wigan looked as sharp as I've seen them for a very long time, and don't think that it's any coincidence that Hardaker has gone. We need to look at taking action with whoever is not putting their shoulder to our wheel.

Ashton's try was as a consequence of superb handling, and at least we didn't capitulate with the score at 10-40.

I didn't see why Daryl Clark was penalised, never mind sin-binned for anything in that tackle. That is something you see scores of times in every game without a penalty awarded. Strange from Hicks, but at least it wasn't a pivotal moment that affected the result.

Plenty of (unfortunately) accurate criticism on here today bottom line is we aren't good enough second and a poor one at that in every department.

Line speed in attack and defense, the Farrell try where we just backed off Magoo, Discipline getting pinged for 6 again's and penalties like Wigan needed any help to march up the pitch and just generally poor poor play conceding three carbon copy try's in that first half blitz was criminal. Surely you'd be ready for the next one and be rolling your sleeves up rather than rolling over.

BTW as much as we were bad Wigan were slick in attack and resolute in defense orchestrated by puppet meister O'Loughlin

The scoreline flattered us and i'm not sure we'll be getting better anytime soon as we don't seem to have a set up that's listening or learning. The supposed easier teams coming up after Saints and Catalans will be looking forward to pitting their wits with us

Wakefield have already shown us where we are as a team at the moment.

Not sure how long this mediocre garbage will be tolerated by the fans.

My tuppence worth…
1) The coach has to take some responsibility for the defensive display. It looked to me that our left edge had been told repeatedly how great Wigan”s right sided attack was and panicked whenever the ball carrier came towards them. We weren’t defensively soft last year, suddenly we are. It isn’t only the players that need to look at themselves.
2) The downside of playing younger players is that confidence can be in short supply when things go horribly wrong. I’m not blaming them just pointing out that you have to take the rough with the smooth.
3) It was one of those matches where everything the opposition does works, combined with a horror show for us.
It will be interesting to see how the coach responds (actions not words).
I agree that Holmes has done very little so far, I think Matautia has been a real curates egg so far, jury is out.
Ps has Cull been ill? I hardly recognised him.

As has been mentioned many times the Wigan right edge tore us apart & frightened us to death. I think Cust, Thornley, Field & French haven't played together much this year. If they stay fit they will be a threat to everyone.
I still think Saints will beat Wigan as they should be able to keep Wigan's right edge away from their line.
The four have much more collective pace than our left edge and (all things being equal) pace
usually wins unless you are playing in 6 inches of mud/rain/wind.

Yes, ominously Saints beat Wigan over Easter by the same margin Wigan beat us.