IMO He's the best 13 in the competition & a Very Good Captain, but Hey, You know better than Ex international & Current SL Coaches etc so you must be more knowledgeable than everyone else on here including me?

Then again, it could just be that your statement is in fact Your Opinion?

How do we know if hadn't been captain the lsat 3 years he would have performed better? Is it not conceivable he could actually have been worse?

Of course it's my opinion. What a strange thing to say.....

I agree with you about him being the best loose in SL and an OK captain but what's the point in using the 'Coaches know best therefore you're wrong' argument? No coach is correct in everything he does, and these forums would be very boring if every coaching decision worked out perfectly.

Vehemently criticising a coach for his decision or the player himself when it can or can't be proved wether he is or isn't and then stating for example that "He is NOT a natural captain." deserves to be picked up on.

If someone wants to make those criticisms of a player/coach then he/she needs to come up with a better argument to back up their statement in my opinion!

My opinion would be that he has been chosen by very experienced coaches who know far more about the game than I/We do and I haven't seen too much to make me think that their was a significantly better alternative &/or making that change would have improved the team's performances.

More importantly IMO I would hazard a guess that not many of the players have thought as much about it as we have and I am sure wouldn't make his captaincy a significant reason for lack of success etc.

PS

I didn't make a "Coaches know Best" Statement I merely said that BK had pointed out that "HE Knew better" than previous coaches who had selected him.
Looking at it a different way BK has basically made his own mind up and no matter what I or anyone else says he is convinced it is the right decision, isn't that what he is criticising the coaches of doing?

My point was that different coaches of different teams at different levels who have worked with Lockers have chosen him has captain.

They have all seen something in him that makes THEM believe that O'Loughlin IS captain material.

So how can WE who see him at most 30 times a year believe that those who work with him on a daily basis are wrong?

I'm unsure about the five captains. Will it work? I don't know but I trust the people in charge will address the problem if there is one.

Is it causing me sleepless nights? No.

Twelve pages on a nothing story - bloody incredible

Than God we'll soon have some rugby to discuss soon.

Actually you "accused" me of posting my opinion on a message board........go figure........

Of course not every coach is correct in everything they do but is every coach that's ever coached him wrong to have made him captain?

Just explain why this shouldn't be "overplayed". It is, by far and away, the best arbiter on whether he is captain material. Far better, in fact (and I'm using that word in it's correct sense) than some nobody on an internet message board who has convinced himself that he knows better than every professiional coach who has ever worked with him. That is "overplaying" an opinion.

Incidentally, the current coach has also constantly reiterated that O'Loughlin could have chosen to be captain should he have wished it. Not only that but, should you care to watch the SL interview linked elsewhere on this board, he singles him out as the standout player and person from the team. Still, let's not have yet another coach's opinion cloud your predjudice, eh?

Now now, let's cut out the personal insults. The season hasn't even started yet.


As for the rest of your post. Well, do I really need to point out how naive it is?

Surely it's a recognition that Lockers game (35 tackles a match and in the thick of it) means he can't be doing the captains job as well. This is something I have said time and again every time the debate over the captaincy has arisen.



I think it's designed this way because of what goes on on-field i.e. Lockers may well be too knackered to give the direction required at times and is a recognition that "leading by example" isn't enough (something else I have always maintained).

If you want a negative spin then Maquire decided Lockers wasn't the best choice for captain but it's a face saving exercise inspired by IL!



Dave

In my opinion no, I would prefer O'Loughlin as captain, I mean he has his faults (hard for refs to work with, doesn't fire the team up much) but he's a class, committed player, a Wigan lad and the players seem to respect him but it would be boring to not discuss captaincy, or anything on the basis of 'coaches know best'.

Totally agree. You can end most discussions on here by saying coaches know best so that ought to be banned as a point made in a discussion

.

I can see where people are coming from when they say he has captained teams at every level but surely the only level that matters is how he does the job in SL?

The fact he was a schoolboy captain is surely completely irrelevant? For all we know he could have got the captaincy back then because his Dad was mates with the teacher! It probably wasn't why he got it but the point is being captain of junior sides is no guarantee you can hack it doing the job as an adult. I am sure several other of the squad captained junior sides as well. Many of the best youngsters who go on to professional careers probably naturally gravitate to be the top player in their junior sides and end up captain as a result. This doesn't mean they can do the job at the top level. It doesn't mean they can't either but it just isn't relevant IMO.

Dave

i tend to think that we will be playing at your alternate venue, Widnes, rather than Leigh, for those 4 or 5 games - although I hope they show a bit of ambition and take at least one game to Liverpool.

exactly: its natural that in junior teams, the best player becomes captain regardless of actual captaincy suitability.

In O'Loughlin's case, his relationship to Andy Farrell was also probably a reason why his junior coaches selected him as captain.

They are brother-in-law arn't they?? If thats the case, how young was he when he married into the family!!

So, John Kear (England A coach) Mike Gregory, Dennis Betts, Ian Millward, Brian Noble and Mike Maguire only picked him as captain because he is Andy Farrells brother in law.



Is that why Cunningham is captain at Saints?

Nah. Making Cunningham captain at Saints, even though he sits out half of each game, was probably yet another part of that complex deal struck to ensure that we'd never again hear statements from him to the effect that he needed to find a way to get out of Rugby League.

Does anyone think that quote will be engraved on his statue? Or was his statue also part of the deal?

I'm not sure where you think the insult is. If it was my saying "a nobody on the internet" to differentiate from a whole host of professional coaches, please explain how this was an insult...or indeed, inaccurate!

As for the second part. Yes, please point out the naivety without using your old fallback of "he would say that" whenever the evidence doesn't support you. I'd be very interested indeed.

Dave, we've had many conversations over the years about the captaincy issue, so I'm well aware of your stance. However I think that saying this proves, for example, that "leading by example isn't enough" is stretching the point a little, don't you think? It's one of many possible theories that could be put forward, however it has no evidencial support and is in fact contrary to what is coming out of the club. Please don't fall to BK's standards of only believing something if it supports your argument and anything that doesn't is simply the person (or club) lying.

I didnt realise that John Kear, Mike Gregory, Dennis Betts, Ian Millward, Brian Noble and Mike Maguire were all coaches of junior teams that O'Loughlin played for.

...and I didnt even know that KC was Andy Farrell's brother in law.

yeh, that wasnt one of his best moments i'm afraid - and its the one reason why I dont class him as a "legend" and I dont think there should be a statue in his honour.

given half a chance, he would have been down the road to Union (with Radlinski, to be fair) - but he (they) took the cash and stayed - and SL as a whole benefited from having 2 players at the top of their game playing in the competition.

I simply cannot believe that nobody has noticed the fact that Melbourne Storm had a very similar leadership group with the likes of Scott Hill, Cam Smith, Kidwell etc for about 2 or 3 years before Cameron Smith emerged as the full time leader and captain of the side and club. This seems to have worked very well both in developing team responsibilty and in grooming Smith to do a superb job without having been thrust into a full time role at 21.

It would be good if one of the younger players was included in this scheme such as sam tomkins or harrison hansen to build for the future.

They weren't. They were mostly his coaches at senior level. That's what makes the whole 'it doesn't matter if he was captain at junior level' argument so monumentally ridiculous and ill informed. As an aside, he was captain at junior level as well. Go figure!

He was selected as captain because of highly rated he was and how well respected he was by the other players.

I know a couple of lads who played with him for town teams and acadamy sides etc and they speak very very highly of him. They don't only rate him as a player but also as a person.

Well the old adage goes if it aint broke don't fix it. Well Maquire has decided to "fix" (change) the captaincy and in my opinion he will have done it for a reason and this message board is about speculating on what happens at the club isn't it, such as why the coach does what he does.

As you know one of the issues I have with Lockers captaincy is he is not a commanding figure on the pitch and puts his head down and gets on with his playing duties. I think that is a problem particularly when the chips are down so could very well be something that influenced Maquire to review the position in the first place.

That said I actually think the most likely reason for having five captains is what was posted by Wigan/Leeds/Andy way back in the thread and I quote "I'm taking this to mean Maguire has decided there isn't anyone in the team with the necessary leadership skills required to do the job on their own. " and that includes Lockers.

Of course W/L/A doesn't know that for sure either



Got to say though one of the things that has made me smile reading this thread is to see some of the Lockers fans playing down the role of captaincy now this has happened. It's suddenly not that important a job after all!

As to what is coming out of the club it includes Lockers agreeing to this change. I wonder what the situation would be if he had said no to the suggestion? My guess is it would have happened anyway so what was he going to do or say?

Dave