I think it paints a superficially gloomy picture.

I've listed the players who were with us for the 2010 Grand Final and aren't with us any more, and have noted three who we will really miss and who we perhaps could - in another era - have kept. The rest were bound to leave the club due to age or injury, while others are being remembered with rose-tinted specs because in reality they blotted their copybook in various ways.

Feka - Endless weight and fitness problems (Maguire didn't rate him).
Phelps - Average at best (Maguire didn't rate him).
Roberts - Career ending injury
Gleeson - Unforgivable idiotic behaviour
J Tomkins - BIG LOSS
Carmont - Retirement
Deacon - Retirement
Riddell - BIG LOSS
Fielden - Barely played for us in years
Hock - Unforgivable idiotic behaviour
Leuluai - BIG LOSS
Coley - Retirement

Okay, all these players are no longer with us - there's no denying that, but time marches on and departures are inevitable at every club. For example, can you really, honestly complain that your team has been 'gutted' when talking about veteran players retiring? There is no reversing the tide of old age. I'm not sure what purpose this thread has other than to create as negative an impression of the club as possible.

Thanks for the dose of realism there Cruncher - overdue on this thread I think!

It is also interesting to look at the arrivals/promotions/positional replacements since that squad

Feka - Prescott
Phelps - S Tomkins
Roberts - Charnley
Gleeson - Goulding
Deacon - Finch then possibly Green - time will tell
Coley - Mossop
Hock - Farrell


For me the only real step down are Riddell , Carmont and possibly Leuluai (depending on how the new half-back pairing go this season).

Apart from the losses due to off-field/behaviour issues I would say the turn-over is no different from most other clubs in terms of numbers.

Absolute rubbish. Look at Saints, Leeds and Warrington their squads have hardly changed the last 2 years. We've lost 6 players from last year alone.

We've lost quality and experienced players and replaced them with a young unproven prop who won't play every week and a halfback pairing considerably weaker than last year on paper. To say young lads can step up and replace these experienced players is slightly hopeful imo.

Farrell is a decent player but currently not in the same league as Hock. Hughes/Thornley/Lloyd, none of these come close to replacing Carmont. Finch and Tommy replaced by Green and Smith, enough said. Prescott hardly played last year so if he has a big season he could replace Lima quite well but Preckys injury record isn't the best.

Not forgetting the season before losing Joel, Hoffman, Deacon, Coley and choosing not to replace them but promote the younger lads. I think its a mixture of bad luck and poor management that we've had so many leave over such a short space of time. No doubt we are weaker than last year but there isn't exactly a list of quality NRL players chomping at the bit to come over to England.

It will be interesting watching Leeds and Wire over the next couple of years and see how they manage a few players coming to the end of their careers. We'll see if signings from the NRL really are a thing of the past.

If we can keep the main first teamers fit we'll be top 4 and make at least one semi imo but I don't see us winning anything this year. That said I'm optimistic about the future if we can keep this young squad together.

Interesting post, and a very welcome positive view, rather than the negative. From my point of view, the club is responding to the fact that the future is looking very difficult with the monies in RU and in Aus. Giving experience to young players as SW and IL are, could well be "money in the bank" moving forward. The club have many variables when planning for the future, not least the players. The club have to plan for a future, hoping players will develop, and stay!! Must be a bloody nightmare planning maybe 5 years into the future. Talk about juggling soot!!!

Also agree with this. Wire/Saints/Leeds fans will be p!$$ing themselves laughing at us at the minute no doubt. But I actually think we're in a better position than them looking slightly longer term. Keeping the majority of this squad together is the difficult part.

Have to agree with most of that.

My point of view is that after storming the league from pretty much of of nowhere in 2010, a lot of people started talking about things like starting a "dynasty" and dominating the league for years like Leeds have done recently. Everyone seemed to assume that because we made it look easy 1 year, it would just be a breeze to match their incredible achievement over the last decade. It hasn't been like that, and we can't measure success on what they've achieved. There might never be another team that does what they've done.

We didn't have the build of a squad to do that because we had a lot of players that were ready to retire in a year or two, or were going to return to the NRL at some point in the near future. Leeds built success around guys like Burrow, McGuire and Sinfield, it didn't come immediately, but when they matured they dominated the league, and that's really what we need to do now. It's more important that the coach & chairman are saying "where do we want to be in 5 years time?" than "We need trophies now! Buy any big name you can get!", because any sustained success is going to come from building around youth.

Agreed again.

Not rubbish - just my opinion.
Saints have lost quite a few players over the last few seasons - Graham, Giddley, Eastmond, Cunningham, Shenton, Flannery to name a few off the top of my head - and there are more. Warrington are about the only team in the league who have not had a huge turnover (but an will need to soon).

Building for the long term is a good idea, but that also involves actually hanging on to the players we bring through. Losing Hock now (although not necessarily Wigan's fault) we've lost a star player just coming into the peak of his career.

It might be really tough to build for the future with the way RL in England is now. Any really talented players can just get better offers from Aus or RU. If we just lose them, it has no more longevity than bringing in star players, plus we probably wouldn't have as much success as the players are developing.

In the last 2-3 years Leeds have lost Webb, Donald, Senior, Smith, Diskin, Buderus, Lauitiiti, Luke Burgess, all of whom have been pretty good for us, plus a few lesser acts.

With the squad we have I'd be disappointed not to finish in the top four.

Once in that top four then obviously it's a case of what happens on the day. We'll be there or thereabouts again this season.

Oi! Stop being reasonable! It's a FARCE! We didn't win a major trophy so we need some big signings, then if we don't win anything with them then we need to get the kids in!

Especially in this league.

Exactly.

While it is true several existing squad members have improved I think that misses the point. We have replaced the ones who have left but how good are the new players? We have some potentially very good players like Hughes and Burke but there aren't really any who you could honestly say are as good as the ones who have left.

So while Micky Mac and Faz are better players it is falling on their shoulders to carry a lot of inexperienced players. Our most experienced prop is Lauaki and he is Mr Average. Smith and Green looked quite good v Salford but that wasn't hard. They were not playing behind a beaten pack and I am not sure they will get that luxury against our main rivals.

We will see but the fact we have not got the likes of Joel, Lima, and Hock here compared to who we have instead is worrying. Those players would stil be here if their contracts had been honoured and if they had been our problems would be much less.

Well when Shaun Wane took over the job from Maguire he inherited a very strong squad of players and did a good job in making sure that Wigan finished the season at the top of the pile.

At the time I was reminded that although Wane had done a good job he had done so following changes implemented by the previous coach, particularly in terms of the way we defended and our plays going forward although it was good to see that we looked even more entertaining in attack.

I think that given the recent changes to the squad including the departure of Hock we will now see just how good Shaun Wane is as head coach because the season is looking more and more challenging.

I now wonder if the expectations of the majority of Wigan supporters has now changed? will they expect Wigan to again finish top of the league and win one or both of the major competitions? Or perhaps some will be satisfied to consolidate until 2014? Either way I think Shaun Wane now has a more difficult job than he did the previous year.

Its worrying that we have lost so many good players but it will be interesting to see how this effects Shaun Wane and the players - particularly the new signings from Hull K.R. who will play a key role in the new season.

I think we are in for a compelling season with a lot resting on how Green and Taylor perform.

This

In a funny way seasons like this are more enjoyable as a fan. don't get me wrong it could go completely Pete Tong, but on the other hand this rookie team might just do the business.

Its going to be interesting

The only irreplaceable player Wigan has is Sam Tomkins. With him on the field you have a chance in every game. The other losses apart from Hock are all emminently replaceable IMO, and it's not down to lack of ambition, money or anything else that Hock has left either.

What's also missing from any discussion of players 'lost' since 2010 is the unique circumstances that brought several of them to your club in the first place - i.e. the Storm cap scandal. Without that, Finch, Lima and Hoffman would have stayed in the NRL and never played for Wigan at all.

Clubs not signing lots of shiny new players isn't actually a bad thing IMO, but it will take SL fans a while to get used to it. As a sport we need to find the next Tomkins, Schofield, Gregory and Hanley - not the next Brett Finch, Brent Webb, Barrett, Lyon etc.

That's putting a positive spin on things, which I don't disapprove of per se, but it will get very frustrating very quickly if we spend time and money finding the next Tomkins, Hanley, Gregory etc - only to see them spend the bulk of their career in the NRL. Once we've found them, we also need to find a way to keep then in the UK. The ways things are at present, that will be even more of a challenge.

The advantage of them playing in the NRL is that England will stand a better chance of winning the world cup, which will help to raise the awareness about the sport in the country which will, in turn, help to get more people interested in the game.

I was going to post something similar. Also when Tommy L signed for after a few average years at Quins. The showed glimpes of his quality now and then but he was average most of the time. Infact prior to Maguire coming over the whole Wigan squad was average most of the time except for the occasional big performance. Most of the players that have left are very replaceable, and although most of the replacements arn't the finished article yet, but in a couple of years I'm sure Wigan will have an even better side than they did in 2010.

what had the biggest effect in the improvement of players at Wigan..... was it the coaching that Madge introduced, if so why isn't IL sending some our assistant coaches over to the NRL for a year or 2. and come back with improved systems, after all the coaches are not part of the salary cap

That's a big statement, I wish I shared your enthisiasm....

I don't know about Tomkins being our only irreplaceable player, personally I'd have put O'Loughlin in there too - it makes such a difference having him fit and firing; for our organisation in attack and defence, and indeed his personal efforts in defence.

Also think Hock made a big difference to our attack - none of our back rowers have the same punch as he does.


I was quite happy with our defence against wire, I think that will be the interesting area this season - we've had no real weak links for some time (occasionally the Finch-Hock-Carmont channel if concentration was lost) but losing Leuluai had me worrying about the other side. Our attack will come in time with the younger players, they will learn what works at SL level.