For whatever reason I watched the recording this morning and if anything it looked a worse performance than I remembered at the game. It was lacking in skill, intellect and composure. This along with the reactions from Peet to this game and previous make me wonder whether the club is in need of a reality check of what Wigan is supposed to be. Was that the performance of a supposed elite club? Is the club displaying contentment and acceptance of a decline in standards with a hint of arrogance thrown in? Why is the main focus of post match interviews pride that we tried hard? No-one doubts the effort and commitment and the will to win. I haven't doubted that in a Wigan team since Michael Maguire came in - it wasn't even an issue during the Adrian Lam years.

Passes and offloads going to ground, ineffective inside balls, [ianother[/i Bevan French intercept, conceding a try in our first defensive test from a basic scrum play, basic handling errors, ludicrous offloads from King conceding possession, poor distribution from dummy half, reckless tackle from Shorrocks giving the referee a decision to make etc. Our one try comes from individual brilliance and did we seriously threaten to score again? When we had good ball, some of the phrases from the commentary were bang on - 'A bit laboured from Wigan', 'too one out', 'poor execution' etc. They looked lost and lacking in confidence and direction. Further perspective - Hull KR missing a first choice halfback, fullback, front rower and an international winger. Wigan have the best training facilities in the league. Marquee players. And they were unquestionably better than us yesterday and deserved to win.

So the concern isn't so much the defeat. Its that expectations of what Wigan should be have changed from elite skill/execution to a team that....tries hard. We can only hope that Mike Danson will provide the same ruthlessness and high standard that was present in the early Lenagan years to provide that reality check and shift the expectations to where they should be.

I’ve said for the past two seasons that we an average side and are very beatable. This year we have regressed particularly in attack. I personally don’t think that there is an arrogance at the club in fact I’d say that senior members of the staff and squad are on the whole modest and have their feet firmly on the ground.

Last season we signed effectively 3 rookies in terms of experience when we needed 3 proven experienced professionals. Two haven’t worked (Cust and Mago) and one (Ellis) might just make it. Add to that the late departure of Bateman means that to get us, in my opinion, to get a half decent squad we need at least one proven experienced players in the following positions namely halfback, prop and back rower. That’s before we replace guys out of contract at the end of the season. For me not one of announced signings remotely addresses our shortfalls in our starting 13.
Maybe there are other signings to be announced, if not, 2024 will be a repeat of recent seasons.

I’d be interested to know who is now responsible for all first team signings. Recently I believe it was IL, KR and the coach. Now that IL is departing will SW cover this vital role?

With regards to yesterday I wasn’t surprised that we lost because when your game plan is limited you rely too much on commitment and determination which we have in bucket loads, but with startling lack of experience of the game in general and big games in particular. You could argue that HKR are short of big game experience etc but they were playing a team of similar experience but in the 2 games this season prior to yesterday HKR where the best team on both occasions albeit both games were played at HKR. So for me a loss was not surprising.
It was a very tense game form the off and though I also screamed at some of the poor offloads etc I would have screamed if we hadn’t tried something a little bit different and a little bit risky.

In the short term Peet and his coaches have to try and resolve the HB situation. Whatever they come up for the remainder of season French (to keep him there is so wasteful), Field (no real experience at HB), Cust (see Field) or Hampshire (hasn’t cut it at HB anywhere since playing first team rugby) it won’t be good enough and needs resolving for 2024. Add to that a pack that can’t dominate on a regular basis and has very little to add to our attacking prowess means for me we will be nearly men again in the playoffs. Without sounding too pessimistic, if we don’t make the playoffs I wouldn’t be totally surprised.

What we have got right since the departure of Lam is a great feel that the club is actually part of the community. That obviously won’t win any silverware, but for me personally, it is a prerequisite of what I expect from the club.

I’m still disappointed about yesterday but hope that better and more successful days are ahead of us.

Long gone are days when you could guarantee a Wigan easy win! The top 10 in SL can all beat each over due to the salary cap e.g. all teams are as good as eachover

That could be true but we need to recruit better. If we had a good stand off, and I am not having a go at Bevan, then we would still have won that game with 12 men. Our recruitment needs to improve and I have a feeling it will.

I just dont think the intensity is there as it was in the Maguire/Wane days. Also our basic skill level seems to be way below par more often than it should be

Compare the skill level and attacking cohesion from 2010-2012 and its night and day.

Look at our spine - Field, French, Smith, O'Neill - precious little experience there in big games, then in the pack we have a lack of experience as well. The squad has been desperate for some experienced players (prop and half-back being top of the list). Also we lack leaders on the pitch - no one seems to be dragging the team together and talking during the game - we need a better, stronger captain - we have a lot of quiet players.

We have relied too much on bringing players through the ranks and project signings for too long and recent signings look like more of the same - we really need a couple of experienced players (poss NRL ex-origin types someone like a Hoffman for example) to guide/help the younger players and act as on-field leaders.

If there is any reality check it is in the coaching side where we really do need some fresh ideas - our attack is really bad, without Field and French doing something freakish we are bang average in attacking plays, we just do not seem to have any idea how to break down defenses and we seem to have gone backwards at quite a rate.

There is no lack of effort/determinaation from the players but they look lost at times.

and more importantly defence

Sack the board

Ok the board have gone.
What do we do next?

Apparently win everything according to everyone on here

I’m not everyone but I’ve never said that.
I think we need some experienced proven players. That might or it might not work. Hopefully more signings to be announced.
What do you suggest? I’m not being aggressive but genuinely interested on what you consider we should be doing with the squad.

Exactly what we are doing with it. We're bringing in players that will improve us and there are more apparently to come. I never like losing games and obviously semi finals and finals always hurt more, but you have to reach them to lose them. At least 8 sides would have swapped places with us this weekend and wanted to play in a semi final.

As I said on the other thread, the test now is what we learn from these defeats but as usual it's baby out with the bathwater and we see a handful of posters (not you) come back to the board that always seem to vanish when we win.

The announced signings aren’t going to improve us that much let’s be honest.

Out
- Singleton, Powell, KPP, King

In
- Chan, Leeming, Walters, Keighran

Let’s see where we finish up.

For me, what we lack most is 2 extra coaches - Both of which we've had before and lost/given up.

The first is obvious - A full-time replacement attacking coach.
We've played at our best when we had Briers/Deacon coaching the halves.

The second is a short(ish) term specialist kicking coach.
I know that we have a kicker joining us for next year, but we need someone to both instill confidence in Harry and to train at least 1 more player to be a decent backup kicker, in case of injuries/suspensions.

Improve coaching, yes.
Massive fans of Tommy and Lockers but straight in as coaches? Peet also, but he is head coach and I think he will be a good coach in time but he needs help. On the positive side Peet picked us up off the floor and we played good rugby and won some silver. Going backwards now. Some promising signings for next year but need at least one metre eater at prop and more faith in the lads coming through.

Isn’t Tommy L our attacking coach?

How can we lack a coach we already have?

He isn’t good enough is what you’re saying.

Our recruitment isn’t over, and neither are the departures from the club.

The biggest single short term change to be made is to get French back on the wing and Cust in at 6.

Beyond this season we need to bring in a 6 and let Cust go.

Keighran can play 6 so we may need to bring in a centre.

Whilst there is a hole in my rear Bevan is not a 6.

Miski has been great especially on our early set carries, his highball work has significantly improved too, but defensively in regards positioning he gets it wrong and he lacks the pace to take advantage of the half opportunities.

Ultimately we won’t get the best out of the team with French at 6.

You can add Mago and Cust to the departures, and then possibly Isa, Thornley (club needs to be ruthless with these 2 i'm afraid). that must give us some scope for addtional recruits. We have Faz as senior 2nd row, and we need to be planning for him playing less time next year, so either a signing alongside Nsemba or other junior(s) coming through. Thornley can be replaced by one of our kids, if we are planning on Wardle / Keighran being 1st choice centres

Most fans (especially on the warriors fans forum) dont rate Powell or Singleton anyway, so they arent a loss are they, so Leeming and Chan or Walters have to be upgrades, until they have a poor game, and then arent good enough

In reponse to one of the earlier posters we brought Mike Cooper in and to an extent Singleton to be our pack leaders, one hasnt really lived up to the billing and Cooper season cut short through injury. Many fans have said we needed centres for the past 2-3 seasons, we sign 2 and some still arent happy, so what are the club to do

with French and Field we have 2 of the most destructive players in the league, and the challenge is clearly how to get them both in the side, with hands on the ball and retain a functioning team. I think if Cust hadnt been injured, we may have seen a slightly different outcome and French may possibly have stayed on the wing and Miski could have been leaving. However, Miski took his chance, and whilst he hasnt got the speed of French, he does offer a massive return when bringing the ball out from our own end, and has a decent scoring record

I don't think the club needs a reality check but I agree we need to get back that intensity of the Maguire / Wane era and not accepting defeat easily.

The biggest thing we are missing is leadership on the pitch. When the going gets tough we lose all composure and start giving away dumb penalties, dropping off tackles, sloppy offloads, etc.

You can see it coming a mile off, teams get on a roll against us with a quick play the ball and the un-ravelling escalates quickly. Nobody seems to be directing us to slow things down and tighten it up, it's so predictable and horrible to watch.

We need a calm head to guide us and Farrell, Smith, French & co aren't that guy.

Now that I agree with.

Our game management is poor in tight, difficult games at times BUT it was under Maguire and Wane at times also.

I don't think there were issues with our defence on Sunday, in fact I thought we were excellent apart from letting SKD offload, but we made four of five strange calls second half which put us under pressure rather than putting more pressure on them culminating in the really strange call to kick early in golden point.

A good experienced HB would remedy some of that imo. Taking the right options at the right time etc. People have differing opinions on French, but one thing we can all agree on is that he's unorthodox in the way he plays. Is that the right option for what we need? Personally, I don't think so but others will disagree.

Things aren’t as bad as this thread might make you believe IMO but I agree with a lot of points for improvement. The mains ones for me being-

-We need two more experienced and proven quality forwards for next year (if we get get one of them for this year than great)

-We need a steady hand and a natural halfback at 6. The spine is too inexperienced to shoe horn in a second full back at stand off. I’ve been patient-ish with the move but I think I’d be making the change come Saturday.

-The players and Peet need to learn lessons. Peet is young, the spine players are young and days like Sunday can happen but take your medicine and make sure it doesn’t happen next time. If you’re prepared to put a young player on the bench, use him. If you’re in positions to win the game, make sure you’ve practised until it’s second nature how you nail it. When you have the ball on the opposition line, in those conditions, stop going for the glory play and show some patience. The amount of times we threw wild passes or kicked possession away was really poor.

I honestly don’t think we’re too far away from having a fantastic side ‘if’ we can get things right over this next few months.

It’s not just the HB or indeed French is the problem it’s the lack of creativity and power in the pack.
KPP and Mago can offload but for whatever reason they appear to have discarded this from the forwards. Smithies did a lovely offload in the CC final but I don’t think that he has repeated since.
We have no forwards who can punch holes in defences or have the ability to score form relatively close range. We have a pack of defenders who offer very little to our attack and the one forward who can run through gaps is starting to show that time may be catching up with him.

It is fixable but some of the signings so far don’t even start to fix the issues. Not sure where we are going to get a HB from unless we pay a transfer fee for say Croft. If we did that I assume that either French or Field would have to depart?
With good players in the squad such as Smith, Smithies, Field, O’Neil, Havard and French we have the seeds to develop a really good team. The next few signings will determine if we go from a competitive hard working team to the team to beat if other teams want to win trophies. I suspect with the cap and juggling quota spots it could be 2025 before we have the right balance within the squad.