Not another one! Here we go again "...the lack of quality available....". The record is stuck.



I am not insinuating anything about what others may think. I am saying "I" am fed up with hearing this excuse. If you aren't I really don't care one way or the other.

In my opinion the club has made a big error in arriving at a situation where we lose Tommy and Finch at the same time. I have said this many times and the fact there isn't much available is why this is such a problem.

Somtimes you got to lose a battle to win a war.

Wane out. IFL out.

Bring Lindsay back. He'd have signed a top halfback. Granted he'd have got rid of Hughes, Charnley, Farrell, Crosby and Powell to do so and still broke the cap but we wouldn't have to watch terrible players like Matty Smith and Blake Green.

Home truths:

1. Forwards - questions need to be asked about the reason for the dip in form of many of our forwards. Half way through the season Mossop, Lima, Hock, Hansen, McIlorum and Lockers in particular were playing very, very well. In recent weeks the pack have been playing way below the level reached at that half way stage. What is/are the reason(s) for this - peaking at the wrong time, overtraining, injuries, poor psychology? We need a post mortem and to learn some lessons for next season.

2. Finch - his form hasn't just dipped, it's collapsed. He's gone from world class to poor. Is he injured or homesick?

3. Tomkins - must play at stand-off next season. We need to have the best player in the comp involved in the game more. He'd have been amazing at full back in one of the great Wigan sides of the early 90s but we don't have players like Edwards, Gregory, Paul or Botica in the halves.

4. New signings/salary cap - we are going to be heavily hit in terms of quality next season but this is something that will affect all clubs. I absolutely despise the SC, which has done massive damage to RL, but actually it will in the longer term work in Wigan's favour, because we produce so many young players. It's not a great comfort given that the long term future of the game seems likely to be a semi-professional competition more like the French domestic RL in quality than what we saw in the early 90s or the early days of SL, but at least we will be top dogs.

5. Discipline - I'm surprised no one seems to have mentioned this (apologies if I've missed it in the 13 pages of this thread!). Our discipline this season simply hasn't been good enough. Wane needs to sort this. We've been on the wrong end of some poor refereeing decisions and interventions by the VR this season but we shouldn't be giving them any extra rope to hang us with.

We've just paid good money to sign a 6 and a 7. You think Sam will play 6 or 7?

Unless we sign a back up 9 for MM he may have to, if SW has no faith in Logan Tomkins have we any alternatives to putting Smith in at interchange hooker ?

What a ridiculous posting, Wigan finished top of the pile after 27 rounds and just didn't perform for the first 40 minutes yesterday. The loss of Tompkins was massive, it would be like Leeds losing Sinfield........he's a game breaker.....not a SL coach??? Rubbish mys only issue with Sean Wane is around his attempt to get McGuire banned he should have just left it to the authorities and got on with his day job

Wane has to account for his Unwillingness to play Logan at 9. Need a new hooker to offer backup if Logan is not to be a replacement 9 as MM's absence has seen a complete reshuffle and collapse of coherence within the team.

Some of the overreactions since last night are astounding.

Tompkins? Who he?

Will or should? He probably won't, but he should. I hope we're not having this debate again this time next year after another year of underachievement.

So you are just whinging for the sake of it then without having a clue how we could have strengthend any better. It also seems like it is okay for you to constantly make the same complaints and criticisms but then you are not prepared to listen to the counter arguments because you dont like them.

If Smith and Green are the best that we could have signed then their isnt a great deal we can do about it. The days of signing top quality from Australia are gone. Other clubs are in a completely different boat to us and either are not losing half backs or have English half backs who are not going back home to Australia or NZ. We dont even know how Smith and Green will turn out, and our rivals arent exactly flush with top half backs either, so forgive me if I am not going to be a pessimist and completely write them off as you are doing. I suppose it is much easier to be a pessimist though and write players off before they have even pulled on the shirt or played as a combination.

There you go, complaining about something you don't like without offering any sort of solution or alternative. The record is stuck!

Why do you assume anyone cares if you're sick of it. Everyone has a right to offer their opinion but in this case your opinion seems to be 'stop saying things I don't agree with.'

DaveO is a prize Pr*ck, he offers nothing. Just a plank. I wish there was a moderator out there with some common sense

SW with his team selection

You are joking right? apart from Roby who else in your forwards are superior? Pelatua (sp) is good but I would take Hock (dream team) Soliola on his day is great but plays quite a lot if he's not on the bench..Perry..lmao LMS can be good in spells..Wilkin over rated..please feel free to point out where you are better in the forwards.

Put Barrett in this team and we could have quite easily done the double 3 years running. Finch is a good player but its no surprise that even in Australia he was classed as a steady player. The fact that he came over here and looked class proves to me how far the standard of Super League has dropped. To break the line from 40 metres out and round a FB would never happen in the NRL with Finch, and he did this on a few occasions.

Think i said something similar end of last season.

The way Wigan are drilled Barrett would have a field day in your team.

Exactly! With the way Wigan have played over the last couple of season we could have had Barrett go on his own, Barrett pass to Hock/Hoffman or Barrett round the back to Tomkins or Barrett cut out pass to Carmont. Its frightening but at least we have Blake Green to look forward to next season...

Piggy was a big loss for you guys and now with Lulu going i think Wigan will struggle to keep up a similar performance to this year.

Wigans fortunes in this season seemed to turn when he was injured in the Exiles game.

Lulu, Carmont, Lima and Finch are massive losses and Lenagan needs to work his magic and cheque book to bring in a good marque player as Green and Smith are no where near the same quality as Finch and Lulu.

I think the departure of Riddell was lessened by the fact that Deacon was able to do another year. The signings we have made are no where near the same quality I agree, but we can still quite easily finish in the top 4.

Difference is can we perform in the big games like the teams around us can? For me Shaun Wane isn't tactically aware for us to perform in these games and I can see a similar scenario to last season for 2013.

Wane needs to keep his big mouth shut, in a game this aggressive you don't want your coach firing up the opposition,
let the players and fans mouth off.

Wouldn't be surprised to see you guys pull off a surprise big name, you're still the main draw for an Aussie.

1) I think if Wane adopted the approach of picking and choosing which games he could lose in the SL rounds would have the majority of wigan fans choking on their pies. I really don't think it would be acceptable.

2) Leed's had the mentality to and desire to stay in that game right to the end - as long as it was close - what they didn't have was the ability to break our line. I can't think of one time when I was worried about them breaking us down - even when they started a set 20m out. What they did have is the ability to finish off their sets and put us under pressure.
This approach requires players able to execute a simple game plan for the full 80mins and for them to stop the attacking team gaining any sort of momentum.

The loss of MM at 9 , and sam at 1 seemed to take away pretty much the attacking structure we have used all season - I'm pretty sure that Murphy didn't get the ball once in a set move with SoL at 3rd receiver. If we score in the first half, get more than 1 score ahead, then Leeds' game plan goes out of the window - they have to play catch up football and they didn't have the team to do it - and wigans defence was too good.

I think Wire at full strength will have too much attacking treat to get stuck in such a slog for the full 80 mins - as they showed at in the CC final when Leeds tried the same approach.

3) Have some people really forgotten how they moaned this time last year when under Madge we seemed to have been found out by playing the same attacking move with Sam? Madge made as many if not more tactical errors - he was far more reluctant to rest players, he was far more predictable in attack, he was often criticised for going for 2 points rather than keep the ball and apply pressure - especially in tight games.

IMO - wane has introduced more variety in attack, shown more faith in the young players, rested some of the senior players, shown a more attacking brand of rugby. I think he should be credited for that.

What he is guilty of I think is lack experience and nous when looking at how to beat the opposition in a one off game - his mantra is that if we pass/support/defend better then we will win. When we come up against a team that plays out of their skins in a do or die game we need to adapt our game as well - it's too early to write him off yet - it will be interesting to see how he goes next season.

Wane is just inexperienced, Smith did the same at wire, walloping teams early on to fall short at the end of the season due to exhaustion and injury.

Tactically he is poor, Leeds won on Friday due to better tactics, exploit the inexperienced FB, not come away from the line without points, keep the scoreboard ticking over.

We scored 2 tries to their one (interception), but poor tactics, indiscipline, and poor team selection (dont give a FB his second start in such a vital game) lost us the game

Madge would have taken the 2 to put us ahead. You don't refuse points in a SF be it 1 or 2. Leeds didn't and they won the game. I bet 90% of people on the ground wondered what the point of Sinfield dropping a goal at 10 0 was.


Oh and regarding Murphy, there was nothing wrong in his selection. Both slater and Barba have dtopt kicks in the GF this morning but they won't be getting hung drawn and quartered.