Why would we be 0/3 or 1/3? Before Thursday we had played a poor Catalan side who dropped enough ball to last a whole season and Huddersfield with a pile of injuries. I agree there are fine lines between entertaining, winning and playing with structure though. Leeds seem to do it quite well however with the same salary cap restrictions?

Quite right, it's a fine line... And, we are not yet out of February... Grand final is in October.

I don't think Gelling is actually thinking about what he does. I don't think he has decided nothing is happening so has decided to take matters into his own hands. I think he is just on a different planet to the rest of the team. Whenever he gets the ball I have no idea what he is going to do with it and I don't think his team mates do either. I think Sarge said this the other week. They aren't moments of brilliance someone like a Hanley could pluck out of thin air but crazy decisions that if they come off look good but if they don't have fans swearing at him. Great players follow the game plan and when the opportunity arises pull something out of the hat. Gelling is not doing that is but unpredictable to the point his team mates don't know what is going on with him.



I don't think it is because his plays are just random and are likely to fail as well as succeed. I think he'd make a far better forward were his job would be to carry the ball up and not try and do the stuff with ball in hand a good centre is expected to do.

I struggle to buy all this 'our moves are old and have been figured out' or 'we do nothing different from 2010' .. oh yes we do, our core skills are appalling. You don't need fancy moves to score a try. You need the ball moved at pace and with precision onto runners hitting the line at the correct time. That creates space and overlaps to score. we then need people with a brain cell to recognise those gaps and overlaps. Sadly we are lacking in all those areas. The aussies are not magic, they do the basics very well. we are incapable of passing the ball correctly.

excuses about Williams inexperience are fine, they cover up brain fart decisions, not being able to see space or making decision at the wrong time...that comes with experience..... they do not cover the 4/5 passes he put to ground at Salford and again at Brisbane. they are inexcusable basics every professional player should have. This goes for Smith and the rest of the team. Our best ball passer is Lockers.

we need to spend less time in the gym, less time wresting each other to death and more time doing the basics.

that's my humble opinion.

Goonie is probably better.

For a first post that's quite a vociferous one. One that you didn't back up with any real reasoning.

If i was to take a complete stab in the dark i would say you are a 15/16 year old Saints fan.

Dave O got it, for me.

At present, there is not a proper centre in the entire Wigan club.

Sarginson is useless, Gelling is less than useless 50% of the time - which is too much, and Oli, though I thought he played well against Salford, is too small.

I too would be prepared to push Gelling into the pack, and maybe give Isa a go in the centre (and let Sarginson go to RU). But I'd rather we signed a couple of seasoned centres. Hardly an ideal solution, but it seems like the only one at present.

And where do we get these "seasoned centres" that everybody is trying to get rid of?

And how is Isa any better than Gelling at centre? If we wanted a solid, boring centre that doesn't pass to his winger, we should've kept Jack Hughes and played him there.

Are we being a bit too hasty with Sarginson here?
Decent players don't become poor ones overnight. I still think he can do a job to a good standard (unless his mind is elsewhere, ala Chris Ashton).

I suppose we've got to go and look for them. We got Carmont in that fashion - from an unexpected source where no one else was looking.

I'm not saying it would be easy. But I feel it's been apparent that we've needed a couple of decent centres for several years now. We missed a cracker only a month or so ago, with Justin Carney.

Ultimately, I just don't think these two are good enough. Gelling is too unreliable, and Sarginson is very average. And when they are not available, we have to play second-rowers there. Surely we can do better than that? It really is a bit of a crisis.

That said, I will admit that if we could get a new scrum-half instead, I'd happily go with that, because I fear we have an even bigger crisis in the halves.

I was impressed with Josh Griffin the Salford centre.
Quite rugged but tough, bit of pace and makes a lot of yards, can tackle hard, very hard.
Got good game awareness too.
Whether we at Wigan can improve him to the extent Sheens has is another matter altogether.

Griffin was much improved prior to Sheens taking over so I wouldn't give him much credit for that. It's his aggression that take him on a level IMO. His brother has also come on leaps and bounds and they sum up the Salford resurgence.

Griffin's defence is questionable though. Gelling skinned him a few times.

Strangely he switched sides in the game (maybe at half time) from the left to the right.

He is also a great goal kicker.

I'd dispute that mate, a rather unimpressive 12 from 21 (57%) so far this season

Dean Collis. Currently without a club.

Joel Moon (Why not interested when at Salford)

Willie Tonga (He is at Leigh now!)

Dean Collis (ex Wakefield who is now free agent)

Ben Crooks (Goal Kicking Option)

These are options to which we didn't even consider or investigate and have been recruited by other clubs.

It would seem a average list but these are proper centre's who set up try's, the starting centres we have are used primarily as additional forwards they both struggle with the final pass to the winger to which should come natural to a good centre. I know eyebrows will be raised by Dean Collis but if you look at the tries he set up at a weak side they were good touches even considering he was injured or playing injured a lot of the time.

My thoughts exactly!

How do you know who was considered? FWIW I don't think there's many SL clubs with three centres as good as Gelling, Sarginson and Gildart so certainly wouldn't be treating centre as a priority. We look far weaker at hooker, and did even before MM got injured.

So how do you know they was considered? Not one of them players have even been rumoured to be close or on Wigan radar.

It doesn't matter how many clubs have three good centres I only care about us. Look at clubs that win trophies they have better centres than we have for scoring and making tries. All I am saying is our centres are being used as additional back row forwards and was why Bateman / Joel have been moved to Centre in past. They get through so much work that when we need them they are battered and bruised an unable to finish off the attacks.

With regards to hooker, yeah we are weak in that position even before MM got injured but who wants to play second fiddle to MM and only play 20 mins who is any good, that is why we havent recruited any hooker since Mark Riddell left the club 6 years ago.

I just think these wont change until we have a change of coach not saying that we need Wane to move on or anything like that because at present we can't really argue with it because we been in the last 3 out of 4 grand finals (but only winning 1).

For me, I think it's just reached a point where i'd like to see what another coach could do with this group of players (and see which ones they'd get rid of). Craig Bellamy's contract runs out this year...

That last period tonight when Gildart came on for Tierney and Sarge moved to fullback looked effective, though brief. I'm a Tierney fan, but he doesn't link well in attack, though his solo runs are excellent.

There's no link there from Tierney and in a side that relies massively on that it effects us. I've got to hand it to the lad because he's been very solid in the main and he's done his reputation no harm but I hope that last 10 mins with Sarge at fullback and Gildart at centre is the way we'll start next week.

Tierney could provide a useful utility option from the bench. It may be a crazy shout but if we want somebody to throw on at 9 for 15 mins here and there to get out from dummy half and take some quick scoots/carries he could be just the man. It's no more crazy then Wane talking about Burke or Bateman going in there IMO.

Doesn't sound crazy to me.

There's no doubt that Sarge is the better fullback. He does present a threat in attack. However Tierney has confounded expectation. At this stage of the season I'd be tempted to keep him in the team. He has earned the right really. His defence is very good. He only dropped one right at the end, and Sneyd could have played in a dinner jacket for all the pressure the props put on his kicks.