The Saints game at the end of the regular season, and the first play off against Les Catalans wouldn't have been bad games to lose. Having said that I think the point is that he should have rotated the squad and not pushed the lads as hard as he did, which may have resulted in a couple more losses, rather than him tactically losing specific games.

We did lose that Saints game - so clearly that didn't help us much. And it's difficult to see how losing to the Cats first round would have helped us, given that it was an easy romp which wasn't likely to tire anyone.

But that aside, I'm actually astounded to learn that anyone thinks a professional sports team should go out INTENDING to under-perform to such an extent that there is a good chance they'll lose, and can only shudder to imagine the calumny that certain posters on here would heap on Shaun Wane's head if he was ever foolish enough to admit that this had been his plan.

As a fan and former player of many years, I have never known a situation where losing matches, or dicing with defeat by turning out a non-competitive team, helped you. You can be more knackered after a heavy beating than you can after an easy win. Defeat is bad for morale as well, and can become a habit.

Great coaches like Graham Lowe and John Monie never believed in wrapping their best players in cotton wool to preserve them for big matches. That Wigan side would compete just as hard the week before Wembley as it did at the start of the season.

But that is a completely different point. Monie and Lowe did not have to contend with the current playoff system. They also didn't have the hamstring that is the Communist Cap, meaning that your best players may well need to be rotated as the "cover" is of a much lower quality.

It's not about deliberately setting out to "under perform" or "lose" games [iper se[/i, it's about realising that the ABSOLUTE AIM in the season is to get the team firing on all cylinders come September. Now of course that means finishing in the top "x" but given the state of SL that should be a given for the top 4 teams.

Okay ... so we're not going to deliberately under-perform mid-season, we're not going to deliberately lose matches mid-season, we're just going to sit our best players on the bench mid-season.

And that doesn't amount to much the same thing?

Well we have tried doing it by 'winning all the matches'.................and that doesn't work.

Wane probably only knows the win every game mentality, and that is, or was, usually fine.

So what is the endgame now ?

The answer nowadays is to win at OT.

So therefore to plan that, is to do what Leeds have been doing ?

Lose 50% of all the seasons games like Leeds have done ?

Shocking.

Not true - our performances in the end of season Premiership under both Lowe and Monie were poor during the record Wembley run, other than the 92 team which could play in its sleep.

No it quite obviously does not.

So just out of interest, which of our best players would have you sat on the bench last season, bearing in mind that Pat Richards and Tommy Leuluai were already sat there for big chunks of it? Or had you forgotten about that?

Shaun Wane got lambasted on here for deliberately turning out a weak team at Widnes. I can just imagine the reaction of a fan like you, if he threw away more points by doing the same thing again.

Leeds won 5 more in SL than they lost, get over it. Or probably around 15 more if you count all the other competitions they competed in.

A great season of achievement, who could possibly disagree with them being crowned champions!!!

Putting a smiley face at the top of your post is not evidence of a convincing argument, nor does it counter the statements I made.

It's not down to me to decide which players I would rest or not. I am not the Wigan coach and am therefore not paid to do this full time.

The issue here is not with individual players, it's with the team as a whole. Given the current rules of the SL competition ensure this is where the trophies are decided there is absolutely no excuse for a team not aiming to peak at this point of time.

There is absolutely no doubt that Wigan looked jaded in the last quarter of the season. We came out of the blocks absolutely flying, yet this counted for nothing. It wasn't just me who was questioning this approach, I remember countless questions over whether Wigan had "peaked" too early. I remember one post match comment by Sam "We haven't peaked yet". Well sorry Sam you had.

It was Wanes first season in charge. His "strategy" failed. Let's see how he approaches season 2.


PS Wane was not lambasted by me for the "Widnes incident", so to use that argument as evidence to counter my statement holds no water at all.

Maybe they train to hard pre season and get tired towards the end.

McDermott at Quins said after a poor season that he had trained the team too hard and they ran out of steam-He has clearly changed his approach at Leeds so that they are fit for the knockout stages.

It probably isnt about resting players more managing fitness levels with a view to peaking in Sept/Oct

Brett, you did not like the appointment of the untried madge, and don't seem to happy with Wane. Oddly, their tenure has seen our most succesful period, trophy wise, for the last 10 or so years.

So, who would you like to see at the reins?

The smiley was there to underline a moment of pompousness on your part, because the points you seem to be trying to make here are actually very far from being 'quite obvious'.

I gather from all this that you think we should be aiming to finish around fifth, as Leeds did?

But in 2009, 2008, 2007 when we finished 6th, 4th and 6th respectively, we won nothing. Whereas in 2010 we finished first and won the Grand Final, and in 2011 we finished second and won the Challenge Cup.

There is no science in this theory of yours that playing to win every match is self-defeating.

I wish the RFL would just change back to 'if you finish top you are champions'

1. No complaints about the rightful champions.
2. Every game means something because your league position defines your season.
3. Every second of every games counts.
4. Fans not worrying about buying season tickets or not - you don't know if your club is gonna try all season or 'just try and peak for the playoffs'
5. Games between the top clubs during the season more intense as losing 'a top 4 clash' could cost you the Championship come the end of the season.
6. Attracts more non RL to come and watch a game - main excuse that I come across is 'yeah but not going watching a RL games, you can finish top and not be champions but finish 5th and still be champions, how stupid is that?'

Quite correct, no science just the overwhelming empirical evidence that supports it.

You mean apart from all the examples I just gave to you of the opposite happening.

What on earth are you babbling on about?

If you honestly believe that your random facts make a sensible and valid argument then I feel sorry for you.

In other words, you have no overwhelming, empirical evidence to hand?

Well how about this … out of 15 Super League seasons (since 199icon_cool.gif, the Grand Final has been won 12 times by teams who finished either first or second in the league, aka teams who presumably had gone out to win as many matches as possible.

Or is that just a random fact as well?

Irrelevant statistics (and I love how you had to include second in them to make them meaningful).

What you fail to mention is that the teams who won the GF peaked at the correct time - listen if we could win every game, finish 1st and still peak in Oct I would be delighted.

You also fail to note the changes to the rules of the competition over the years (which have have massively diluted the benefits of finishing 1st or 2nd).

The list of Grand Final winners is irrelevant?

And those who finished second in the league obviously weren't trying, so they don't count either?

Are you for real?

But if your main point is that to become Champions it's all about peaking at the right time, I doubt anyone would argue with you. I also doubt anyone would argue that Shaun Wane didn't manage this last season.

But you seem to be asserting that to do this you need to save yourself during the regular season. Which is spurious and unproved. Wigan didn't do that in 2010, whether you regard that statistic as irrelevant or not.

It would also be a high-risk strategy. The notion that to be sure of making the Grand Final, you must chance taking some matches lightly and still, somehow, be sure of finishing high enough up to the table to not give yourself a mountain to climb is frankly ridiculous.

There is also the not inconsiderable matter of entertaining your fans. Given the outpouring of anger when Shaun Wane took Widnes lightly last season, I doubt it's a risk he'll be taking again any time soon.

Will you both please stop saying 'empirical'.
It sounds dead clever, but sadly you ain't using it proper...

Just a few posts above yours here I posted this:

"Whenever anyone quotes a club official such as IL or the coach to back up a point I have seen comments suggesting these quotes are not to be believed. "

So aren't you doing exactly as I mention above here and are suggesting when Wane said he wanted to win every game he didn't actually really mean it in the sense it wasn't his plan to do so?

Because if you are I think you are 100% wrong.

And no I wouldn't expect a coach to say anything else but there is a difference between stating the obvious (that you want to win every game) and setting out [uto actually do it[/u. Wane did, in my opinion do the latter. No spin. No lies.

? Are you a troll?

Empirical i.e. from a point of observation.

Can you explain where I am not using this term proper[size=150ly[/size.

If you do insist on making a grammatical point (and there is nothing at all wrong with that in todays "I'm not thick, i'm just dyslexic" world) that at least get your adverbs correct.

Here's the thing, if everyone went out at the start of the season to peak at the right time then there would still be a league, and it would still be possible to play to win every game, it's just that fitness would be lower pre-playoffs. There would still be a team at the top of the league and a team at the bottom. Unless the bottom teams go out at full pelt to beat the unfit, barely trying, top teams to win a game?

In regards to the use of the word "empirical", for the vast majority of SL the winner has been in the top two of the league standings having won more games, either by trying to win more, by mistake(?) or by throwing some games to avoid going out to win them all. In summary, I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Wane saying that he has an aspiration to win every game is not necessarily what is team will do, either by design or not. On the other hand, if they did then I doubt that any Wigan fan would be complaining!