Last season Wane said that he wanted to win every game but I think he learned that that was a mistake and with the top eight play-off format all Wigan had to concentrate on was winning the big games and resting tired and injured players. They looked really fresh in the Grand Final and that's all thanks to our coach.

This bloke lives every second of his time in charge and is so passionate. I'm made up for him.

Shaun Wane and all the coaching staff have done a phenomenal job recruiting,getting the team prepared and fit this season in the face of adversity and transition. How sweet it must be for Wane, the staff and the players to win the double when every body in Rugby League had written us off at the start of the season. In my mind Wane is a Wigan legend, I wouldn't want any other person as our head coach, he just wants success for the club above his own.

Truly remarkable effort from Shaun Wane and his coaching staff. Don't think the 2013 squad compares to the 2010 team that Madge was given and yet he has achieved the double. The future of Wigan RLFC is developing young players and in Shaun Wane we have the ideal man at the helm. Hope he is here for the next 10 years. Well done Waney!

Wane deserves a lot of credit for that win. Even though we scored just on half time it still needed a damn fine team talk. A lot of teams would have been dead and buried at 16-2 down and even at 16-6 would have felt they had it all to do.

The way the team approached the 2nd half was a tribute to their mental toughness and that comes from the coach.

A big pat on the back for Bitcon and the rest of the back room boys as well.

When we got to 16-6 down my son said "Dad, Warrington are knackered". And IMO he was right. Fitness also played a big part.

Now he, is the master!

He's put himself up there with the coaching greats of the British game by winning an historic Double. A squad that includes just 2 Aussies and 1 Kiwi and the rest are British is magnificent.

Massive congratulations Mr Wane, you shouldn't have to buy yourself a pint in Wigan for a while

As I said after the Leeds loss you could see his strategy start to unfold, and they were starting to peak at the right time. Massive credit to all the back room staff. Job well done. Cannot wait till next year already.

I felt exceptionally jealous of Wigan tonight.

Not of the trophies (congratulations btw!) but of the passion shown by your coach.

I don't buy into the theory that coaches need to stay calm and not show their emotions. Clearly knows how to motivate his players and he bleeds cherry & white.

Shame when I see Anderson & McDermott doing so well and the bulls are stuck with a Rhino with no personality or motivational skills.

The way they approached the finals (both the CC and the play-off games + GF ) was spot on in terms of fitness and particularly from a mental point of view. That wasn't because they lost form for a period in the 2nd half of the season though. That wasn't a plan.



There is one huge difference that sticks out as a different approach though between this year and last. And that is how he has used Micky Mac. Played the full 80 many times last year. Never did this year until the finals. A clever change and key aspect IMO. Not sure logan will feel the same way.

If Shaun Wane spoke with an Australian accent he would be lauded by everybody, as it is when we lose he takes all sort of unjustified stick. He should be tied down to a long term contract as he is the ideal man to take us forward and blood the youngsters coming through. Fantastic coach

At the turn of the year, people were lining up to take shots at him. The Hock saga, the semi defeats last year, comparisons to Madge, a bit of anti-Lenegan abuse thrown in. Where are those mugs now? Presumably grumbling on the other forum

70%

As someone has just posted on twitter, he has had two seasons as a head coach, and won all three available trophies....

I really want to have my say too some on here who have criticised and stifled debate on how the management have managed the season, but best not....

Don't mind admitting that I did not think Wane would enjoy this kind of success, I did not doubt his passion and commitment but I did doubt his tactical knowledge.

Last night was a bit of a master stroke.

Well done to Wane.

(and to think he is not coach of the year).

Ultimately there will always be malcontents. People who just don't like for the sake of not liking. The IL period at Wigan RL, thus far at least, has been strongly notable for this - especially on online forums like ours. IL himself and SW have come under repeated stinging attack. Yet the malcontents must now be feeling a little isolated.

Not that the criticism has always had the ring of sanity anyway. Here are some examples:

Virtually on first arriving at Wigan, IL was accused of being a nasty, mean little man whom the OP didn't like on sight (even though he admitted to not knowing him). Said OP then disappeared and has never returned!!! Two phrases spring to mind on that front: 'Psycho', or more likely, 'idiot'.

A short time later, IL was accused of betraying Brian Noble by not renewing his contract. I mean, you really couldn't make that one up. But it actually happened. After that, he also spent time in the dock because he wouldn't announce the successor - even though he was, at that stage, still negotiating with him.

Issues were made concerning the departure of average to mediocre players - like Nickey Stanton and Shaun Ainscough, neither of who we hear anything about these days. The loss of Mickey Higham was a more regrettable affair, yet, good lad though he was, he wasn't worth the fuss that was made.

When we won the Grand Final in 2010, IL was accused of having got lucky in his appointment of Michael Maguire. Apparently he just dipped his hand into a hat and pulled out the name of an Aussie assistant. He didn't do any due diligence, he didn't consult Wayne Bennett or Craig Bellamy. It was all luck.

In the SW era, both men were criticised for their handling of the Gareth Hock affair. Another one that you couldn't make up. Hock is indeed a good player, but he was given every chance at Wigan, and he blew them all. Thanks to his poor discipline both off and on the field, he's now missed something like two Challenge Cup winner medals and two Grand Final medals. On the subject of Hock, we were subjected to all kinds of ominous whisperings, like: 'Iit'll all come out in the wash', 'the club is at an all-time low','the club is in the gutter'. When we asked what was going on, we were told cryptically 'read between the lines'. Well, I tried ... but failed to find anything of significance. So we waited patiently to see if something would happen. And nothing did.

This last season, of course, the moaners have had a field-day. The mid/late-season results were a sign that SW simply wasn't good enough - I guess the Challenge Cup win was just a blip. When it was finally announced that Sam was leaving, something everyone had known was going to happen for months, the moaners, who'd clearly been saving up an awful lot of energy for this one event, really blew a gasket, and yet - much to their own surprise, I think - they didn't win universal support from the Wigan faithful, the vast majority of whom were obviously closet happy-clappers. Back in the real world, it was more the case that quite a few fans, by now, were getting used to the idea that British RL is in a financial rut, and that the new emphasis had to be about making the best of a bad situation.

Yet ironically we were treated to more rubbish.

In response to reasoned arguments, we got 'Wigan RL is a sports club, not a business - it should not be necessary to run it on profitable lines'. Yeah? Try telling that to Bradford.

One of the most amazing accusations of all was that IL was trousering transfer fees - something I still think was libelous, though the Wigan club being who they are, it was never likely they would follow that through (and someone clearly had a word with the poster in question anyway).

And now, suddenly, we're where we are. We've done the double. In two years, SW has matched the achievement of the supposedly peerless St Helens side of the mid-2000s, except that we've done it when the CC and GF were virtually back to back, which no-one has done before. Since IL came on board - having financially reorganised the club, put massive emphasis on the junior programme, and having made several very astute appointments like Bitcon, Deacon, Johnson, Rads etc (all fortuitous decisions on his part, no doubt!!!) - we are indisputably back among the elite of the British game. Silverware glints in the cabinet. We're playing the Aussie champs again. We are the talk of the town.

Everyone is very happy. No one has got a bad word to say. But it was like that in 2010.

I wonder how long it will last this time.

Great post

I take your point, however Logan did play in the CCF. However, what SW has done is to become a master of picking the right squad for the opposition. Whilst there is a line of argument that says, "we play our game, let them worry about us", SW has not done that.
Its also interesting that come the last game of the season there were pretty much no doubts what the team should be. the arguments were more over what people thought SW might pick, rather than what was needed.

Cant wait until next season to see how the game plan might change with the developments of Williams and Hampshire as potential bench players, and with a slightly different game plan to reflect whatever the strengths of the squad are.

great post! thank god this site still has sensible posters like yourself.

while I come on here and read whats being said, I don't really post on here a lot because I get fed up reading some of the sh%te that's spouted by certain posters who only seem happy if they can have a personal dig at IFL or want to criticise the club at any given opportunity. considering the state of rugby league over here atm, I think lenagan has done a very good job in making the club as strong as possible.

I can''t wait for the dissection.......

-master stroke? as in wire were 16-2 up and running you ragged until a few mins before half time when mono got injured? the long break gave wigan a breather and wire not only lost momentum but also lost one of there star playes,surely that was the turning point of the game? that and ratchfords * dubious *tackle*injury*
and nothing to do with wanes tactics on the night! well done by the way enjoy your victory i look forward to our meeting nxt season.

Anyone got any straws for this whopper?

Conveniently forgot the "Swinging arm" in your assessment of the game i see.

What people are forgetting, is that in the first half we carved wire open 3 or 4 times only for goulding or josh to cock it up. There was always points in us.

So you think that Wane got it wrong tactically? Even before your injuries Wigan exposed your defence a number of times and had we executed better could of been significantly ahead early doors.

Unfortunately for Warrington a game of rugby league lasts for 80 minutes and not 40.

See you in 2014, year of the Wolf.