no involvement in the sport but from my experience the players are happy to lap up the support when things are going well, but happy to slate the fans when things are not going well. Thats in all sports that i have been involved in not just rugby.

You start blaming the fans for failures you are up a creak without a paddle from my experience.

You admitted you weren't there, and then, in virtually the sentence, decided that it was a pile of scheizer.

That, to me, is shallow. Whether you like it or not, that stands you in the corner with those malcontents and armchair cynics who have a problem with whatever the club does. It isn't impressive - by any stretch, and that's all I initially said about it.

You want to know what I didn't like about tonight - the lack of clarity on the coaching issue. However, that was the only thing, and it was easy to glean that that Noble, if he gets another contract, will at most be here for one year. That's not good, it's not what we need, but, trying to take a longer view, maybe it's necessary if the guy we really want isn't yet available. It happened in 85/86 and look how that worked out.

The problem is that we fans are still unrealistic in our ambitions. You don't build empires in a day. You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs - all the usual cliches, yadda yadda. But there's an element of truth there. Mo and DW tried to recreate Wigan by chucking money at uninterested Aussies. The great Wigan side was never built on that. We had some good overseas recruits, but most were British lads, and many came through the ranks at Wigan. At present, we're clearly trying to re-seed the team with youth. That's okay by me. I want to see a good signing at some point soon - I know we need a new prop - but there's no reason to assume this won't happen. Gleeson was signed out of the blue. None of the know-alls on the other website had the first clue it was coming.

At the end of the day IL is a slick businessman. He sells for a living. He's clearly good at it, and yes, it makes you wonder if he's all front. But I'm not prepared to write the Wigan admin off yet. At least they have these forums. They've pulled great crowds in this summer despite the recession. We're looking forward to an epic CC semi. All is not crap in the Wigan RL garden despite the pontificating of CP Wigan and his yes-men.

That's the feeling I've had all this week. I went into tonight's meeting, and nothing I heard changed that view. We need a new coach - very, very clearly, but that will happen in the near future. I didn't expect it to be announced tonight given that the semi is only a few days away.

I wasn't meaning to have a go at you personally. But some times this rampant negativity is ridiculous. People don't hear what they want to hear, and immediately decide that it means everthing's gone pear-shaped. Let's look at the reality and get a bloody grip.

very good post.

Great post cruncher. I was unable to make it tonight but instead of reading through all these pages I think that will do for me. Things are not as good as they could be at Wigan, we want to be making profit and winning trophies, but things are not as bad as some make out and certainly not as complicated as some make out.

Yes you can that's the point!! AND those of us that think you are out of order that you have gone too far can tell YOU that's what WE think!

Answer my question John - WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO?

And as I have said I am not talking about criticising players performance!! I am talking about the consistent abuse a small number of fans give certain players every day!!

At the very least it's boring.

I was very impressed with IL last night.

My impression last season was that he was personally trying to do everything at the club & didn't have the support in place - he now has the likes of Mick Hogan, Simon Collinson etc as part of his management team and I believe that the club is in very good hands going forward.

Some highlights from last night (apologies if some have already been covered) were:

- We are currently looking at a £150k loss for the season, although a Wembley appearance is worth £250k, so we could be looking at a £100k profit,

- Lenagan's (& the RFL's) clear priority going forward is developing high quality young players,

- At present, we have signed no new players for next season. Wigan had looked at around 6 props and various other overseas players - £150k a year ago equated to around Aus$400k, it is now worth Aus$295k. Because RL is so popular in Australia, many of the top aussie players have lucrative media and promotional contracts, which they cannot get in the UK, therefore, making it more difficult to attract them. Lenagan did due dilligence on a number of players and decided that there were negative issues attached that meant that they were not worth the outlay or risk. Certain other club's lack of due dilligence may have interesting results. IL did state the obvious, that with Feka and Fielden off-contract at the end of the 2010 season, there could be a huge wedge of SC money available to sign props (IF Feka and Fielden were not re-signed),

- Before Mick Hogan came to Wigan, the club did not have a Foundation scheme (linked to work in the community etc). We now have - Warrington have 24 fulltime staff attached to theirs and it is worth £1m per year to their club! Part of the community work involves links to an Educational Academy, where Wigan are looking to have a RL Centre of Excellence at which the U18s and U20s will train etc.

- Sponsorship - Wigan have signed up 5 new sponsors in the past 12 months......Mecca Bingo, UCLAN, Warburtons, Ashton, Wigan & Leigh PCT plus 1 other. We are at an advanced stage in negotiating for the major shirt sponsor for next season, with Mecca being one of the companies that we are negotiating with. Not having this sponsorship in place pre-Christmas (& the lack of the JJB Sports pipeline) seriously affected our ability to shift shirts, with around 8k being sold this season compared to the expected 16k - although a Wembley appearance this season will help to address this! Since Wigan signed up Mecca, around 50% of SL clubs have also contacted them about sponsorship,

- Scouting - I won't repeat the Chorley Panthers scenario that was very well put as a question to IL (I know that it is covered earlier in this thread). IL agreed that scouting needed to be improved, but that over the past 12 months it had not been a priority owing to everything else at the club,

- Quins - IL still owns 65% of the shares at Quins, but has no active interest whatsoever in the club, although a soft spot for them. He is trying to sell the shares,

- Individual players - IL would not comment on individual players (questions were asked about Pryce, Fielden etc) other than to say that he believed that, with recovery and conditioning, Pryce could turn out to be a world class player and that he hopes that Fielden will perform well over the remainder of this season and next),

- Fanbase - No decision has yet been made on season ticket prices for next season (Hudds slashed the price of season tickets by 50%, but this only resulted in a 3% increase in attendances!). Mick Hogan outlined that Wigan intend to target youngsters ("the next generation of life-long Wigan fans"icon_wink.gif. He quoted an interesting statistic that I won't quote on here to avoid trolling (if you are a Wigan fan, PM me if you want to know!),

- Partnership with an Aussie NRL club - Wigan expect this to happen in the next 12 months & are trying to attach Mark Flannagan to a club for the next 12 to 24 months, hoping that he will then return to Wigan. The idea is to loan young players between the clubs as part of their development, with Wigan's young players being able to play Toyota Cup or even NRL - I had to laugh at the guy sat behind me who shouted "tell them to loan us Lockyer"



- Salary Cap - IL was asked if we had the same SC as other clubs owing to their recruitment. He outlined how HMRC now have an interest in RL clubs use of image rights & overseas payments and maintained that Wigan "won't cheat",

- There is a press release today about the new loan system between clubs for U18s and U20s next season (new rules for loans between SL and Championship clubs).

- Coaching - IL was very complimentary about Brian Noble and outlined that the two of them worked together very well. He outlined that he expected Wigan to win trophies, that no decision had been made on BN for 2010 (Noble wants a 1 year deal) and that both Wigan and BN were exploring options, which included re-signing BN for another year. This is just MY take on the matter - don't be surprised if we have a new coach for next season...............it is clear that IL wants someone to take Wigan (& our young players) to the next level.

The 'banter' at the start of the questioning was with a guy who owns a Fisheries (poster on the other board?) and was over the interpretation of the term "afford" in relation to signing top notch props.

Well said Elli, as above mostl of the time I cant be ar$ed getting into "discussions" with some posters on here, I think you have voiced the opinion of most loyal supporters well said again!

If we are speculating it causes them to perfrom poorly, i could very well put it to you that a player uses it as motivation to improve and hence prove them wrong.

I do not agree with the opinion of that small minority generally nor with the way they express there opinion, but to use it as an excuse for poor performance smacks of smoke and mirrors and reminds me of the Pirtekgate all over again.

So in conclusion. A modest amount of information was gleaned as expected. Those who turned up wanting to find fault found fault. Those who turned up wanting to hear good stuff heard good stuff. And those who just wanted to get out on a Wednesday night had a pleasant evening laughing at the stupid questions. Move along the bus, please.

Thanks for that.

As I couldn't go last night that's exactly what I was looking for a concise summary of what went on.

cheers.

I couldn't get there either - so thanks for a balanced summary

At last Thank God for you Bert's Medal. That actually sounds like the meeting I went to. Thank you for helping me to see I have not lost the plot completely. I was beginning to think I went to a meeting on a parrallel planet. Your transcript is very good

I've got to say all this slating players drivel omg lets take the forum down and no one have an opinion cause thats what making players play worse



Like john said they are not in the right job if they cant take stick mather had over 8 months before he got slated bigstyle, pryce has had 1 year training and nearly a season playing and looks unfit wtf is that all about explain that ian!

I'm liking where the club is going i like what il and mick hogan are doing in the back lets hope we stick with it

That's not really the issue here. It's fine to criticise a players performance. e.g. Tomkins this week, what the real issue is the personal comments that people come out with. The constant digs at this weeks scapegoat. For instance, Amos Roberts has got terrible grief this week. There's an 8 page thread about his performance yet there's no 8 page thread about Tomkins, Phelps, Gardner, Meli or that shocking pass from Flannigan. Piggy has had numerous threads regarding his lack of fitness yet he's regularly doing 60 mins which is more than Cunningham, Roby, Buderous, Diskin, Moore etc.

Some fans pick a player, usually foreign, and decide that they'll ruin them for the foreseeable future. Remember Skydog and his problem with Lockers?

i dont mind a bit of slating of players ...thats what happens with sports people ....you can't please all the people all the time......BUT

some people on here and other boards constantly slag players off for the slightest thing. Some players are NEVER given a chance and as i said before no matter what they do they are detested by a very small minority on here and other boards........

for me personally i think if a player lacks confidence thats down to your coaching staff...as they are not doing a good job with him.....the coaching staff should know a player better than any of us and each player has different ways of dealing with pressure......some as has been pointed out say 'f..you' and go out and prove you wrong others may take it to heart and it affects their play......our players are HUMAN not robots.

lets get rid of the negativity surrounding our FANTASIC club........once whelan and co left i thought that would as well.............we have to trust Lenagen to take us the right way

I agree

I can't remember if it was this year or end of last but Mathers was introduced to the fans in the SS before a match, and people actually booed and then talked over him whilst he was being interviews. I was not a Mathers fan at all, and I do think he was very poor whilst at Wigan, but that night when that happened was beyond embarrassing. For me, criticize a player when he does something wrong, like IL did after the Hudds match last season, but not boo and jeer when that player isn't even playing! Truly pathetic. So yeah I do agree with IL when he said that some Wigan fans behaved disgracefully re Mathers.

Name rings a bell



On to the roberts thread i didn't like him when he came over but last 6 weeks (barr friday) he aint played that bad and yeah i did eat humble pie



On to the piggy issue it doesn't help when cullen is on boots n all pointing out that players are targeting him cause his fitness isn't up to scratch

At the end of the day we are wigan the biggest club in rugby league everyone who put pen to paper knew what they was getting into

This is all very true. I don't know how many folk at Wigan read forums like this, but if I was their boss I'd strongly advise that none of them do.

The problem with the internet is that it gives anyone and everyone an equal voice. In some respects that's a good thing, but it also allows people with agendas, people who are thick and people who are just plain nasty to build up bandwagons of disdain for certain individuals, with seemingly no-one to call time on it or make the point that this is only a few people who don't speak for the majority.

Granted, if we're public figures we have to take the rough with the smooth. But we all want to be liked, and some of the head-hunting vitriol that goes on online must be quite shocking to young and inexperienced players.

Criticism is one thing, but joyously rippng someone apart because it's part of your office politics (the way the Ainscough crowd do with Roberts) is totally unacceptable. It's also totally cynical - I suspect that some of these people have set out to make the player as uncomfortable as possible, hoping that it'll make him want to leave, regardless of the knock-on effect this will have for the Wigan team. Pretty disgusting, if true.

So a player becomes disillusioned, disaffected and disappointed by what he may read about himself on this forum?

Lets compare that scenario with what the people of Mogadishu think of Americans, what the people of Helmand province think of foreign soldiers, what the people of Serbia thought of the UN pilots bombing Sarajevo in the 1990's.

The best way to avoid confrontation is to avoid the area? Isn't it logical?

Surely anyone with any common sense should expect some form of backlash if entering territory likely to cause distress?

Simple solution to those advising those players that "[imay read these forums[/i" - tell them "[iDon't go near the forums[/i".

Problem solved.

I'm not condoning over the top criticism and/or personal attacks, slurs or insults to players but the importance of forums like this need to be put into context. How many people post regularly as a %age of the average attendance, and out of them how many are over the top in their character assassinations? Surely it's a drop in the ocean. ATEOTD it's a free world. No-one makes those at the club read the drivel on here. They should realise that there are probably less than 14 malcontents as opposed to average support of 14000.

any mention of Hock?

I can't really argue with that at all, like I said I was unable to attend last night so relied on information and titbits that people who did go came back and divulged. I am disappointed with some of the things that came out last night such as the Noble situation and the scouting policies, but I was happy to hear of other things, so for me it's a really mixed bag.

Absolutly spot on, when reading this it's hard to gauge what public opinion is, you can easily get an 8 page thread going with all negativity, yet it could only be a few people posting, so it isn't a true reflection of public opinion.

We are all fans, all we thrive on is the joy of a win and the pain of a loss, if some of us feel that one player in particular has lost us a game, its easy to witch hunt that player and certain players do get crucified on here.

IL is right, it isn't going to do the player any good to ironically cheer when he catches a ball, or cheer geniunly when he goes down injured, I don't care wether it should or shouldn't affect them as professionals, but it will, theres no way you could block that out.