Right, first things first. Ill say this so others dont have to: 1) it was only pre-season 2) Im confident we'll be OK this season.

Glad thats out of the way.

ANYWAY...

My most worrying aspect of the game today was how little influence George Williams had. The Saints forwards were indeed very aggressive (as to be expected as its their cup final) but everytime I watched Williams he seemed reluctant to take the ball anywhere near their line before passing. In interviews on Wigan TV over the past few months Shaun Wane has repeatedly talked about how he requires a running halfback who will take the ball to the line aswell as a kicking and organising halfback. Williams has obviously replaced Green as the running halfback and this is why he got the 6 shirt over Powell but today he seemed reluctant to do even that. Additionaly I lost count of how many times he was caught in posession and lost us metres. I wouldnt post this if I didnt think it was a slight concern but he was poor in his spell against Leigh aswell. Yet, against Leigh, when Hampshire moved to 6 he was a bright spark. Contrast that to today and Hampshire was awful when he played at fullback. So surely Wane has to now look at playing Hampshire at 6?

It's early doors, however here are my thoughts, these were before a ball was even passed this year.

Williams looks a better Hooker than half back.

Powell looks a better half back than Williams.

Hampshire is a liability at fullback. Hampshire also looks more of a threat in the halves than Williams.

Summary, Williams off the bench in the hooking role. Hampshire/Powell in the halves. If Bowen is out move Sarge to fullback as we can cover centre more easily than fullback.

YES! Completely agree, in time Id than have Tierney replace Bowen.

I think Williams and Hampshire have the potential to be a very good partnership.

Smith and Williams simply don't seem to work because they are too alike in style.

I noticed when Rocky came back on at 6 for the final 10 he was barking out the orders at his pack, I've never seen Williams do that at this level.

I'd like Williams to go out on loan to a SL club get some game time as a traditional 7.

Burns showed today what we miss with Williams at 6 and without Green.

I think going into the season without a top class 6 will be the difference between silverware and finishing trophyless, we look fairly good everywhere else. I've not been impressed with Williams at 9 either, so I'm not sure how the jigsaw fits best together.

You're very right. My only suggestion is we play Hampshire at 6 he was good there against Leigh.

I think Powell will probably end up playing the most games at 6 out of the three of him, Williams and Hampshire although I do feel Hampshire is the best of the three. I've said before that I'm happy with those three but to keep them fresh and performing we'll have to rotate a little and keep them all fighting for the shirt.

On the plus side from pre season Connor Farrell looks a real player! He's got more natural aggression then Liam yet a lot of his other attributes are much the same. On the subject of Liam I hope Wanes calls for more aggression from him are not to his detriment. He's looked pre occupied with being niggly these past two weeks and it's not needed IMO. Guys like Joel Tomkins, McIlorum and Bateman have that aggressive streak and to me Faz should just be cracking on with what he's best at.

Hampshire is a better 6 than anyone else in the Wigan squad from my viewings and his positional play at 1 lands him in difficulty at times. Could it be communication with his wingers as he's not played there a massive amount? If I was Wane I'd have him as stand off every week.
I believe Williams will replace Smith in time but I think he'll float between 6 and 9 for the next season or two.

Think Rocky has to be at 6 against Widnes. Longer term perhaps him at FB and Williams/Powell at SO might work out but we need to hit the ground running.

Yeah i agree. As much as I like him L. Farrell does come across too timid a lot of the time when the opposition are aggressive.

As for his brother Connor, he looked decent but my only worry with him is his lack of size. No doubt he'll get bigger with age but it was a complete mismatch today him coming up against Atelea Vea in the same position who was 3 stone heavier than him!! Mark Bitcoin needs to work miracles with young Connor I think.

Pacific I beg to differ when you say that Farrell is to timid, he is the only forward who does the full 80 min and today he was the only forward who made any ground or half a break ( even though he needs to cut out the niggly lying on at the play the ball). In my opinion his only downfall to being a really great second row is lack of size.

But the main concern is the lack of cohesion at halfback, whatever partnership we have at present just does not seem to gell.

Again in my opinion Smith is not a running or creative scrum half and as I have said before he plays as a secondary dummy half. By saying this all he seems to do is move the ball as quick has he can to the right and today by trying to move the ball fast ( the famous Wigan structure) the pass either went behind the supporting Wigan players or in some cases these same Wigan players overran the ball.

So what is the answer, I would play Hampshire and Williams at halfback next week at Workington, if only to give them time to get a bit of confidence back and I would play Smith at hooker and have MM on the bench.

Halfback is without doubt the problem at Wigan and something has to be sorted out, because there is nobody else on the horizon waiting to come in.

The fact that we're a week and a half away from the start of the season and we don't know what our half-back combination will be is ridiculous.

I agree totally. I was amazed when Williams was given the number 6 jersey. Surely he was /is more of a scrum half than stand off - I think he made his debut a couple of years ago at London and he scored a 40 yard try after an outrageous dummy. He reminded me then ( in physique) of a young Andy Gregory and that try reminded me of one Greg scored against Halifax over 20 years ago when he sold several equally outrageous dummies! . Certainly he used to play 7 with Hampshire at 6 for the academy - that might be the best option as far as a balanced partnership goes. But can we "drop" the England number 7 from his (rightful?) scrum half position? Keep Smith at 7 and have Hampshire 6 - most of us agree Hampshire has had 2 bad days at the office as full back in both friendlies, but he was impressive at 6, particularly against Leigh.

My other concern is the lack of size in the pack. Masoe, Amor, Walmsley looked massive in comparison with the Wigan pack - and the Leigh forwards also looked bigger. This lack of size was supposed to have been addressed and was referred to at the Fans Forum by IL, but there still seems a disparity. Crosby, Mossop, Flower and Patrick do not seem to have the same physical presence as the other top teams' props. And Bateman and both Farrells aren't massive beasts either! Wane obviously prefers mobile ( and therefore "slimmer"icon_wink.gif props, but sheer size and weight are surely important factors too, particularly with props and even second rows.

We need a Kelvin Skerrett type prop and a David Furner type second row!

It might not be in our minds but I think it is in Wane's. He spoke after the game about the Williams/Smith partnership and how they need to work better together but I doubt he'll move away from that pairing for a little while. He also spoke about how many things Hampshire has to work on during the same interview and seemed to be dampening any expectation that he may come in to the starting line up.

I've got to be honest though I would like to think the past two weeks have put paid to thought of Hampshire being a fullback because it's simply not his position. I would rather run with Sarginson, Tierney or Burgess in there should anything happen to Bowen and let Hampshire concentrate on his halfback play. We're wasting valuable time having this kid working on fielding kicks and making one on one tackles when to me he should be working on getting a team round the field from halfback and on his kicking game, both out of hand and from the kicking tee. We complain as a country that we don't produce top quality halfbacks, well we've got one in the making 'If' he's given the chance.

I honestly cant get my head around why Wane is too stubborn to play Hampshire at standoff consistently? He was brilliant there against Leigh and he's been awful at fullback the past few games.

Our club talks about 'Long term planning' a lot and at last weeks Fans Forum Radlinski didnt stop talking about how our club has long term succession plans and they already know the plans for each young players future and position in the team. With this in mind it seems pretty obvious to me that as Hampshire is clearly better at Standoff than fullback he should be moved there. And, as a long term fullback, Tierney will be able to step up in a season or so. Hampshire has said himself that he prefers standoff to fullback and I believe his dad said similar on the Wakefield board last season. Tierney is obviously going to become a decent fullback in time so why is Wane so worried about Hampshire playing Standoff?

Most worrying of all at the Fans Forum Radlinski said he's even discussed with Wane the option of playing Hampshire as a hooker and filling in there. i think this would be yet another step back and would halt the development of the lad.

Ah well, there's always next season.

Yes, this was the point I was trying to make about Liam Farrell. Our lack of size was VERY apparent today. It seems a lot of our props such as Flower (when hes back), Mossop, Clubb and Patrick are actually more 'beefed up' second rowers than out-and-out props.

Our backrow, whilst having enormous potential, is also pretty small.

Im all for giving kids a chance but the reason forwards usually come through later than backs at most teams is because they need to put size on. Greenwood and Sutton still look a little light for me.

Tautai will help us with size but will he be enough?

Of course Saints are a bigger than average team and we're a younger than average team so to an extent this size mismatch is to be expected. But today it was probably the first time in a few years, especiAally the first half, where i've seen Wigan genuinely struggle to deal with an opposition pack.

I have to be honest I'm not a big fan of Farrell. I know that many will not agree with that but I genuinely don't know what he brings.

He clearly has his moments and can run a good line but he drops too much ball, his discipline is not great and he lacks size. I appreciate the size element can't be helped. Faz will look great against poor teams but lacks the ability to impact in big games.

We have been saying we need size got a few years now yet we are still running with a small pack especially in the backrow. I think we could carry that if we went huge in the frontrow but again we haven't. I genuinely don't understand the Patrick signing.

Tautai will do some damage, I still think we should have been looking for a big experienced Prop. We are crying out for a Scott Logan or Craig Smith yet we sign a small to average sized backrow convert to play up front.

Wigan are clearly lacking size up front but have a back row to match any in SL.
The youngsters coming through are very raw and need time to fill out I think.
Sutton is the pick from the academy forwards currently IMO and Wigan did well to persuade him not to go to Australia.

Tbf we've been saying we need a "big experienced prop" for about 6 years. And also tbf, our pack has been battered many times since then - especially last year - but our backs have constantly bailed us out. Which is why it's even more concerning that we don't have a solid 6 and 7 yet because our playbook moves where we can score from 60 yards just won't come off.

And I kinda agree with you about Farrell. For a guy so small I can't believe just how slow he is and he's often a liability with penalties. But then he'll make a 50 yard break or appear on the end of an offload and score a vital try.

In Locky we have a world class 13. I expect big things from Tomkins this year for me Faz and Bateman should be competing for a spot in the 17 not accommodating them both.


I think we talk our backrow up a lot but in truth it could be significantly improved fairly comfortably.

I hear that Gareth Carvell is still looking for a club



No, but in all seriousness, I was genuinely shocked today at how dominated we were in the forwards. I've never seen that happen under Wane before. Even when we've lost in the past its been a close call but we struggled at times to make any metres and they were rolling through us like bulldozers.

In reality, it obviously means little in terms of the result and Tautai and O'Loughlin will be back soon. BUT one thing is does bring into question is our lack of size. I love seeing academy products get a chance but I remember a Paul Prescott interview a few years ago when he retired and he said "Im proud to have represented my hometown club in a position where so few other local lads have succeeded". He obviously meant at prop and its interesting because realistically the biggest players are often the ones with Pacific Islander heritage and as much as Wane loves bringing young local lads through I think Prop will be a position we may have to bring others in.

Sutton will go on to be great with us by the way but still needs a bit more size. I think Wane realizes we need to break our 'homegrown' policy in order to add size to the pack and this is evident from the signing of Tautai.

Farrell scares the life out of me when he has the ball. He looks like he can make a break ever time he gets the ball against saints. He always seems to score as well.

Whilst the results of the last two weeks are meaningless the performances aren't.

The negatives - Hampshire has no positional sense, he can't catch or tackle. So he's not a full back. He did play well at Stand off against an under strength Leigh team. That doesn't mean he's ready for Super League, because he's not.

The pack have been dominated. The props aren't big enough.

Joel is not a centre. Gildart is not ready. Sarginson may be needed at Full back.

Williams has offered nothing and is nowhere near ready. Our failure to replace Blake Green with a seasoned pro may backfire. The Dragons, Saints, even Hull KR and Cas, have quite possibly recruited better than we have.

The positives -There really haven't been any.

The way we finished last season gave me great hope for this one. However, there is lots to be concerned about. I know that people who haven't bothered going to the Leigh and Saints games are going to come on and slaughter me saying that there hasn't been a ball kicked yet and you are writing us off. I'm not - but I'm very concerned. If there was anyone there yesterday who isn't concerned I'd be surprised.

Except for the actual cup final which is Saint's cup final. Oh and the league year which they came top of last year, Then yes apart from those two little things then yes this was Saint's cup final.