Just rewatched the game.

Smith was hopeless.

1 pass in the first half when he managed some shape.

Kicking game shocking.

No service on the right.

2 needless penalties which gave KR field position to win the game, got put clean through from 20 m out…ran at the tacklers.

Body language was poor throughout the game, looked interested in the last 10 mins.

I’m sure he has potential but his attitude has a big ? over it.

Leagues turd, so we will make the top six but it’ll be by virtue of scraping past out of form teams. The most worrying thing from this season is that IMO. If we play a team in any sort of form we lose. If we play a team out of form, like Salford last week, Wakey the week before or Hudds in those two games, we can just about scrape home on the basis that they’re shocking and somehow worse than use.

Lam is just an horrendous coach for me. I’m still not writing this season off but it’ll be nigh on a miracle to turn it around with the deluded one at the helm. I’d have called Havard in to my office if I were Lam in the week, when he said we’d blown Salford away in that second half last week. I’d want to know how or why he felt that was us blowing a team away. If that’s a performance they’re Karting themselves on the back for, then I shudder to think what us now acceptable.

None of the team would get into Wigans 2nd team in the glory days

We all acknowledge the prop issue and it is significant.

The other major issue is the lack of quality in the spine of the team.

9-issue
7-Hastings superb
6. Issue
13. Issue
1. Quality.

You don’t need world beaters in the centres and on the wing if you have a quality spine.

Surely Millward?

I’d be happy with our spine for the rest of this season if we had a decent coach but he’s clueless. His comments on Morgan Smithies summed him up really. He spoke about how he’s been running the ball with more vigour and even though he knows he’s smaller than props/middles at other clubs, he’ll hold his own when he flogs him in there for rest of this season. So two alarm bells ring out to me straight away. 1-he’s been running with more vigour, making more ground and generally looking more comfortable in the second row but we’re moving him and 2-John Bateman has 13 on his back and we finally got to see him there in spells in the last two games and he had a good influence on the games but he’s done in there by the sounds of things.

I genuinely cannot wait to see the back of him. It’s such a shame that a great player for us will leave as a coach with the fan base letting out a collective sigh of relief but that’s what it will be. To not have to listen to his post match interviews again will be a pleasure.

I'm 43 .... no Google here.... is it Kel Coslett by any chance?

Best and most truthful post of the lot.

It's very frustrating. With ball in hand, we seem to have a 5 minute spell where we look like we know what to do, we then revert back to one out predcitable rugby.

In defence, the number of silly petulant mistakes is unacceptable and is killing us.

It says a lot that the best tackle of the game came from Jai Field on their big prop forward, absolutely crunched him. He also looked like lightening with the ball.

Yeah there was some great signs from Field, once fully fit he will be a definite asset. We just need our forward to do their job, and stop giving away stupid penalties

Hardaker again, great kick returner but nowhere to be seen chiming into the line in attack.

Field to FB for the rest of the year ?

Field has been signed to replace Hastings and play Stand Off with Smith at Scrum Half next season.


And he is not a regular full back unless of course, like the great David Bolton and Hastings plays there in an emergency!

And again the Oxford United fan was right, last night proves what he said to be true

I’ve had treatment to enable me to forget that name.
Now the nightmares start again.

I’m pretty sure it was Coslett at the helm when we got relegated.
The only reason we not with Leyth at the bottom is due almost entirely to Hastings.
At least we got shut of Millward when we finally realised that he was clueless.

Lam is totally and utterly useless. He would struggle at any level of the game in a coaching capacity.

You obviously have a high level of technical knowledge of the game from your posts and I’ve learned quite a bit about many aspects of play from your posts but your final sentence is one of the reasons why the game is on it’s arris and why my long love of the game is waning.

Please don’t take my post as a personal slur as I genuinely like your inputs and find them very insightful but in that sentence for me you have summed up why the game will never develop any real class outside backs because they are now almost superfluous to the game where any fit athletes can “do a job”

If Lam is so bad, perhaps you should ask Lenagan why he has never sacked him.

Perhaps he cannot afford anyone better!

Maybe he can’t afford anyone better so the best way to remedy that is to see increased gates.
Which stand will you be in next week?

I totally agree.

Athletes are now taking over.

The game is now becoming “money ball” where teams generally look for their outside backs to be extra forwards.

The cap also means that if you put together a quality spine you will have to make sacrifices in other positions.

I hope I’m wrong but I wouldn’t be shocked to see

1. French
2. Miski
3. Bibby
4. Thornley
5. Marshall
6. Field
7. Smith

As our starting backs next year.

We look to have significantly improved our middles, with the 2 additions, but unless we add quality to the spine I really think we struggle.

With Hastings going we desperately need to bring someone in.

The apparent lack of planning has created an issue in that we have lots of cap wrapped up in 3 specialist fullbacks hence the strong rumours surrounding Hardaker.

The truth is we only have ourselves to blame for this situation and it goes above just the coach. The leadership at the club have made significant errors in recruitment, retention and succession planning and it is one that will take more than one off season to address.

Our left edge last night made 71 carries, our right edge 34.

It’s hardly a challenge for defenders to understand where the attack is going and how they need to snub it out.

We have one of the most attack minded and creative secondrow forwards in the league and he is getting starved of possession due to lack of service.

It was noticeable KPP towards the end of the game was taking the ball up on the left too in an attempt to get into the game ball in hard.

I think that the only way that you’re 1 to 7 will change is if Hardaker stays or we recruit to replace Hardaker. I believe that we have spoken to Miller at Wakefield but unsure if this is now a non starter due to the recruits from the nrl

I’ve said for a while that the squad is totally out of balance and for example the resigning of Bateman just added to that. IL and KR decide the squad so I agree they are to blame for all of its faults and shortcomings.
Unless there are some major changes at the top I’m not sure that even a new coaching set up can resolve the issues. When IL goes then KR will probably follow as the new owner will want his own man in place.
This won’t happen I suspect until the 2023 season.

Things will get better when Lam goes but I don’t see any silverware until IL goes or he gets his mojo back because despite one or two decent signings the retention and other recruits have been nothing but backward steps in recent seasons.

I think that the only way that you’re 1 to 7 will change is if Hardaker stays or we recruit to replace Hardaker. I believe that we have spoken to Miller at Wakefield but unsure if this is now a non starter due to the recruits from the nrl

I’ve said for a while that the squad is totally out of balance and for example the resigning of Bateman just added to that. IL and KR decide the squad so I agree they are to blame for all of its faults and shortcomings.
Unless there are some major changes at the top I’m not sure that even a new coaching set up can resolve the issues. When IL goes then KR will probably follow as the new owner will want his own man in place.
This won’t happen I suspect until the 2023 season.

Things will get better when Lam goes but I don’t see any silverware until IL goes or he gets his mojo back because despite one or two decent signings the retention and other recruits have been nothing but backward steps in recent seasons.

During our success under Maguire and Wane, I felt a big difference was how good we were at shifting the ball left to right. Look at the Gleeson try in the Grand Final from our own half and then the success wingers have had that side over the last decade. Now it might be because O’Loughlin was probably the best left to right link man in the game but it’s still a lot of bodies who need to show a high level of skill to get us over the line. I’ve watched most of the game again and some of the shifts last night were just down to a lack of basic skill. We clearly don’t practice enough from the younger ages and then it’s more difficult to catch up the older the players get. It’s just been alluded to about players being athletes now and that literally sums up everyone except KPP who we are all lauding because he can put in a regular offload in his game! Our forward production line is basically lads who can make 40 tackles but with very little damage done other than an occasional Smithies head in the tackle or a Partington flop.

I think its down to recruitment, keep signing left sided people, I know ive said it numerous times and been shot down but we need people who are natural at being that side, we had, joel, gells and charnely for years, then replaced gells with sarge who was a left sided centre and bateman who is a righty but when he left we sigend greenwood another left sided second row, it seems we just sign people who play the position in general and a preference isnt looked at, Miski is a left winger but have signed him to play on the right, might sound daft but he will have to run with the ball in the other arm and change his step etc, small things but thats the difference in the league

The most dominant Wigan side I've seen was the 2011 one, which went on an incredible streak of being unbeaten in 21 out of 22 games and won the CC Final. That season Goulding, Charnley and Roberts all played on both wings (the first two scored on both wings as well). Goulding and Marsh played both centres, Deacon played halfback on both sides of the pitch, Farrell played and scored in both second row positions. There are plenty big issues to fix but that isn't one of them.