I have seen enough to conclude that Wigan are not good enough to win anything this season. So the rest of the season should be used to develop the younger players who showed tremendous promise in the midweek Derby against Saints. The last two woeful semi-final performances have shown that Lam is completely incapable of delivering when it matters. I can accept defeat, as I have had plenty disappointments in the last 60 years, but to be be rolled over by two lesser teams when it matters is hard to take.

Lammy has rightly taken some stick on here and he has to go for me as do the rest. We find a coach we want and we back him. If he wants to go to the moon for pre-season, we go.

I don't think Lam should shoulder the whole blame though. The players have spoken about how they had a meeting after HKR and made some changes. Well they didn't even last a month. Now it's time for the leadership group to stand up and be counted.

We have 7 or 8 games left and come the final game we need to be ready to go out and win some big games. It's happened plenty of times in the past (Leeds from 5th twice) where a side seems to flick a switch and come home strong, well that today should be our switch.

Dream on. However back in reality ...

We don’t have that switch under Lam sadly. I thought we’d flicked it on after the HKR game but it was just another false dawn under Lam. We look poorly coached and devoid of ideas. On the odd occasion like Huddersfield away or Hull in the cup we manage to put some minutes together and get a good result but week in week out we look lost in the main. We’re in a bit of a transitional phase at the moment with the old guard past their best and a load of young lads breaking through and it’s so important we get the right man in to take charge of that. I don’t know who that is but I certainly know who it isn’t.

Back in reality what ? I'll have a few pints of what you have been supping mate.

That display was NOT Wigan standard. Nor was the decision on last Tuesday evening's match to ask our younger players to play Saints 'up the middle' . Bonkers, bonkers decisions !

Agar 'out planned' Lam . FFS.

And that is why the leadership team needs to stand up

I agree. I think you misread my post!

We are still in with a shot of winning the GF, no way should we and will we be giving up on this season. Yesterday was awful but conditions really played into Leeds hands and once they got on a roll we couldn’t stop them, it’s frustrating given the magnitude of the game but sometimes these things happen. Saints aside I see no team that I wouldn’t give us a good chance of beating it we turn up and I don’t think Saints are unbeatable either.

But that's the conditions this season's going to finish in!!!!

No offense mate but you seriously need to take off those cherry and white specs

It is not being a happy clappy to hope that we can out together a run of results to rescue the season, it is called being a fan. Having said that despite the quality in the team we just do not look like contenders because we are so inconsistent. Bizarrely having a great crop of youngsters is problematic. They become a long term project that negates our ability to bring in seasoned players over the short term whilst necessitating keeping hold of mentors who should have been out out to grass. Sadly the usual outcome will be that we eventually let young players go to bring in stop gap players and they will go on to be successful elsewhere.
I am not advocating keeping hold of all of our youngsters. I think that seeing Sammy Kibula for Warrington will have ended that argument but I am horrified by how often we let players go but do not replace them with better players. Even now we are signing Singleton who is a solid player but is also more of what we already have got without being able to move anyone on.
I know that the Burgess move has not worked out but he is a marquee signing. For his nominal cost on the salary cap we could have got a decent player. Sadly he will be with us until he is fit or until his contract finishes. Even so other teams manage to find quality players and fit them in under the cap but it is usually done at the expense of sentimentality allowing for the dead wood to be trimmed.

And how do you think Graham Lowe, John Monie, Graham West and more recently, Michael Maguire would have gone on with the present squad?

Another point to bear in mind, beyond all this talk of middles and halves, is that when we do get in the attacking zone, we have lost one of our main strike weapons in Marshall, and Manfredi looks, at best, a shadow of his former self.

There's no point writing off the rest of the season, that's just crazy. If we get in the playoffs we have a chance of winning the Grand Final. Every club does. It might be a smaller chance than the other teams involved in there but it's still a chance. When you consider the craziness that can happen during this year a team could almost fluke it. A team could finish 4th, play a semi final against a team with 4 or 5 players missing through injury/covid reasons, win and face a team with the same problems in the final. This year we just have to win as much as possible. We failed in the cup so everything needs to go into finishing in the top 4 now.

For the rest of the season I hope Lam learns lessons from our failures. When we lose he says he doesn't know why it happened. That just isn't good enough when a lot of people watching can identify why we'd struggle before the game even starts. The number of people I've spoken to who predicted what would happen against Leeds is worrying when the coach seems oblivious.

Lam should be open to making changes. We're playing games later in the year now, the weather could be horrendous like it was yesterday and we didn't make it easier on ourselves. We should be comfortable packing the bench with forwards if we need to. Of selecting bigger players down the middle rather than 90kg back rowers. In poor conditions we might not be able to bring Bevan French into the game as much, so maybe it's worth trying him in the halves to get his hands on the ball more and have a solid fullback in Hardaker. Maybe Hastings should play more at hooker. Maybe he should be played at 13 with 2 actual props starting and 3 on the bench. Right now Lam seems adamant that things are working and puzzled when we lose. If we play the same team in the same conditions again I'd be surprised if he didn't pick the same team with the same tactics and say the same thing after a defeat.

One thing we’ll have to do if we play in conditions as bad as that again is to chance our arm and go wide with the ball because we just can’t compete down the middle yet. I could understand us starting g conservatively yesterday but it was obvious after 15 minutes that we couldn’t match their go forward through the middle and when things started to go wrong we should’ve changed how we were playing. Sadly Lam doesn’t seem to have a plan A, let alone a plan B or C.

5 derbies, Anfield Magic weekend, Camp Neu, Wire in last years cup, Salford in Semi for grand final and Leeds yesterday.

We have choked in every big game under Lammys stewardship

Pretty depressing isn’t it and when you see links with guys like Field who Lam has spoke of knowing all about, making you think he’s recommended him and will be here next year, it all becomes that bit more depressing.

I see absolutely no signs that Lam knows how to turn this round.

It was predicted that the weather would be as it turned out. Lam should have known that a good long kicking game was essential. TL doesn't have one, Hastings has one as does Smith. He would also know that our great asset of speed would count for nothing if we didn't go wide and quickly. He should also have known that in those conditions he should have started with older and more experienced props than a 20 year old and a 19 year old. Bullock and Flower could have been selected in those conditions. They have played in them many times before and know exactly what's required. Lam didn't take into account the conditions and change his squad selection accordingly. Hence we were beaten very convincingly by a team who did note the conditions and played them extremely well.

If he means what he says by improving then he has to change his starting front row for Friday. Hill and Cooper are excellent props who can make ground and land on their front. They are capable of making large metres and have to be stopped. Wire will have a good kicking game, they usually have. We need one just as good if not better. Instead of having one main kicker go for two to confuse their attack and Powell kicking from dh. Salford had a game plan, ok it just worked in the last five minutes but that's what mattered. Our coaching staff have to have a very good game plan from minute one.

If Lam is serious about recovering then this is just as hard a test as they come. Wire are coming off a semi defeat as we are so who reacts to that adversity will be interesting to see.

Another big game, another defeat. Chokers-r-us.

It's always sack the Coach when we lose, but never sack the real people who are to blame for the decline over the past 2/3 seasons.

Perhaps, why Wane who was 100% Wigan threw in the towel!

It ultimately is the coach who is to blame ! He picks the team and does the gameplan . Cant be blaming anyone but the coach and players for effort

Exactly.

I doubt there's a coach in the world who, given the chance, wouldn't hesitate to strengthen his squad.

Of course there's a debate to be had about the makeup of the squad - is it balanced right, do we have the right kind of players to help others do what they need etc.

That being said it's a coaches job to get the most out of his players and get them playing consistently. A measure of a good coach is the difference between a teams worst and best performances imo. Teams will always have bad and good weeks, but there shouldn't be drastic differences between the two. If the team are capable of a Catalan/Hull level performance then that's around the level we should come to expect most weeks.

If we then get beat by a better side, fair enough. That's when you point to recruitment, but until we're seeing consistency the blame is pointed mostly at Lam imo.

Is it?you a weather man? It was a lovely day yesterday and although it might not seem like it we average more dry days then wet days in October and November.
Saturday was garbage and hard to take but to write the season off is a bit drastic to me, we bounced back well from the mauling to Hull KR and I think we could again. I’m not predicting we will win the grand final but stranger things have happened and to just give up on it seems daft to me and I have no doubt that they won’t be doing that.

One of the recurring questions in one of my group chats is; what's our gameplan? No one has any idea, including the players as far as I can see. My best guess as to the answer is to try and score about 24 points, then switch off and try to hang on for the rest of the match.

He asked the team after the match if we're "just a semi final team?" Well, we were reigning champions when he took over.

So frustrating as I thought we looked smooth as silk in the first half against Hull. The opposition was very weak and we were gifted countless opportunities but we still looked impressive.

Attitude may have played a part but as I said on the day those conditions are like kryptonite for Wigan. Take away a fast ruck and the threat of French and the other outside backs and we're in trouble, particularly with a pack lacking in size and experience.