Sammut wasn't dropped.

Win at Wire? I don't think so.

London.

Would Sandow and/or Barba with Savelio be welcome at Wigan?
I think your desperate for a back rower since losing Farrell and a spark of magic in the halves.

Why the panic? SL is so beige we’ll pick up wins, even with this rabble of championship players. We’ll finish mid-table. It didn’t kill wire the other year, it won’t kill us. IL won’t be overly worried.

We look like the 2006 team ... enough said!!!

he was, hes playing for Swinton on Sunday

Why don't we try dropping Williams he's played far far more games than Sammut and hasn't improved at all what harm can it do to give Sammut at run in the first team and maybe just maybe he might turn out a better option than lazy uninterested Williams!!

Didn’t have a great game (none of them did -again).

For me the issue is the forwards not laying a strong platform to get us into the opposition half to put any moves on.

Huddersfield (and Hull two weeks ago) were making strong yards from depth set after set, then putting a great kicking game in leaving us coming out of our own quarter 2-3 metres at a time. We would then put aimless ‘up in the air’ balls and it repeats again.

Huddersfield grabbers on the last gave them about 7 repeat sets from our drop outs, think we gained 1.

1. Forwards not making the yards.
2. Pi$$ poor kicking game on the last.
3. Awful passing yet again.

The last two matches Tautai has cost us four points, needs binning off. He’s a liability.

Given his lack of experience/coaching pedigree - would Adrian Lam have got the job if he hadn't previously played for Wigan?

Listen to these comments after the game. He openly admits he doesn't know what to do:



Frightening really.

I’m highly concerned about the conditioning setup at the club. Slow line speed, weak defence where we are making tackles but not controlling the ruck and poorly executed attacking shape have been a regular feature. We look tired after 10 minutes in most cases and then try to hang on. I think it’s fair to say we are at least hanging on in games so they aren’t blowouts, which means the players have some bottle about them but if they haven’t been prepared correctly there’s little hope for the season.

We are slow with line speed due to having to make 8-10 tackles a set. Both Hull and Hudds offloaded out of the tackle for fun. The extra tackles gassed us.

We have been fitter than the opposition for years and probably still are. Trouble is coaches now know how to take the energy out of us by offloads out of the tackle.

This part of defence needs sorting and quickly. Price and the Wire team will have watched that and would be daft not to do the same. If Wire produce as many off loads as Hudds I don't even want think what the score will be.

All that said, I wasn't too bothered about the 14 points it was us only scoring 6 against the leagues bottom club who hadn't won all season.

If we play in the next three matches like last night then we'll have a new coach long before Easter. As for Betts, he got Widnes to bottom of the League two seasons on the run and will have no problem doing the same with us.
We need a quality coach asap!

Exactly this. Lam is a proud guy.
He'll walk.

Exactly this. I would stick with Lam for this season and then get Shane Flanagan for 2020.

Are you Mrs Lam?

Pretty sure Lam’s whole family is staying in Sydney so that quip doesn’t really work.

Its going to be a long season!!

I’m probably signed up to the “crisis” club but I’m nowhere near signing up to the “Lam OUT” club.

He’s been dealt a crappy hand. Do not underestimate the loss of Sam Tomkins, for me his influence carried us over the line sometimes last season. He is where the creativity and organising came from by his linking into the attacking line and his big gob. That left Williams able to do his own thing, to varying success admittedly.

Throw in the Micky Mac loss the season previous and of course John Bateman and there’s three huge names whom bar the signing of Hardaker, who is still finding his feet, haven’t really been replaced.

Lam now faces a tough call; carry on playing a player who is unsettled in a pivotal role despite playing abysmally or drop him for the better of the team? I’d say drop him personally, no player can be safe in a team such as ours regardless of who they are. However, that raises another issue; Tommy. Ironically Friday was one of his better-ish games (5/10 rather than 3/10). He needs moving to hooker sooner rather than later. Therefore we’d be changing our whole HB combo around to play Woods/Escare/Shorrocks in their place. That is a huge gamble IMHO.

Lam’s caught between the devil and the deep blue sea here. Whichever he does will be heavily scrutinised and criticised in equal measure.

Another huge issue we have is our pack which has turned into one of the softest and gentlest in the league. So bad in fact that Ikahihifo looked half decent. Other than Navarette and a handful of youngsters, we have no real proper replacements. We also need a hooker capable of leading them around the park and that necessity is utterly baffling when you think we let Micky go just over 18months ago.

This team requires investment big investment;
2 new props
2 new HB
1 new hooker

That’s 5 huge and costly signings. We missed out on Kasiano probably because he was going to cost a lot of money. That could have been a huge signing for us. I just can’t see IL sanctioning those 5 huge signings without 7/8 outgoings whom are all still under contract for at least another season.

You’ve also got to consider that Lam was only ever going to be here for one season. Therefore why would IL heavily invest in his targets rather than Shaun Edwards’? The answer is he wouldn’t. Why would he? Hence Sammut.

The issues don’t *all* stem from Lam but were likely contributing factors into SW leaving.

Hold on to your hats, the 2019 SL ride is about to get a lot more bumpy.

I am obviously in the minority with Adrian Lam but what does getting rid of him achieve after 5 games?

How do we know what he is coaching when we drop the ball on the first tackle every single time we got into an attacking position in the first half? No matter who is coaching if you make those basic errors you will gift possession and field position to the opposition. I felt the defence was alright last night definitely an improvement on the earlier games.

O Loughlin/Powell/Bullock all dropped ball on the first tackle in the Hudds 20 after a penalty for us and totally negated the pressure they would have been under. I dont think that can be laid at Lam's door.

Stick by him and he might get it right, I dont see any point in getting rid and bringing someone in for 6 months until Edwards arrives (and he will arrive)

When Wane announced he was going last year we had a run like this and the Wane Out brigade were in full voice, we know how that turned out.

We are 5 games into a long season.

I expected us to struggle this year. That would have been the case if Wane was still in charge. I do think the pattern with ourselves in 2017 and Leeds either side of that is telling. For whatever reason I think the Grand Final winners do have a high likelihood of struggling the following season, and throwing the World Club Challenge in their makes things tougher. Not that I'm saying it's a write of for any team or that it isn't conceivably possible for us to do well - just that I think that it makes things difficult.

Now throw in a few more issues, such as the loss of pivotal players, the loss of coach who was well respected by the players and helped them achieve great things, a desire from those above to change things, and it's not hard to see why things might start to go wrong.

Team selection hasn't been settled - and the best teams usually have a settled side. Lam picked his strongest side for 3 games in a row and we only got 1 win. We played 2 very good sides and lost, which isn't the worst outcome. Then Lam started changing things. Sometimes it was forced through injuries, but others just seem to be confusion over our best side. Losing to Hull and then London has obviously hit confidence and things seem to have snowballed out of control a little bit. There's no consistency in the side and no confidence and that's a bad combination.

Now Lam's team selection could be called into question but it's nothing new for a new coach to be unsure of what his best side is. When you've got established players failing to perform it's also hard for a coach to tell who he should have faith with and who needs taking out of the firing line.

Some of our issues seem to be (in no particular order):

1. Using Hardaker as if he's Tomkins. He's not a playmaker at all and doesn't get involved nearly enough as Tomkins did, but a lot of our players seem to be the same as before, gearing around the fullback creating opportunities. He's also being used as a kicker. Tomkins was our best kicker. Hardaker - on current evidence - absolutely is not, and isn't a good kicker full stop.

2. Not using one of our few decent kickers, Escare, in a position where we can actually use his kicking game.

3. Signing a player with a good kicking game and then not actually playing him.

4. Not knowing who belongs in our strongest pack. Navarrete got the chop this week, but is he worse than Tautai (who was a complete liability yet again despite actually seeming interested for once)? Isa is our back up second row but Hamlin seems to play much better there. Clubb gets picked despite seemingly not having a good game all season and generally being the worst of our props.

5. The leadership team is thoroughly uninspiring - Yes, I know the players got to pick but bloody hell it doesn't half look like we're lacking leaders. Last season along with O'Loughlin we had Bateman, a natural leader who played like one and Tomkins, a natural leader who played like one. Clubb, Farrell, Leuluai - do they play like leaders? They might be great guys off the field and the players might love them, but leaders, really? They seem nice guys. Jamie Peacock didn't seem 'nice'. Andy Farrell didn't seem 'nice'. Where's the mongrel within our team? Where are the leaders who go above and beyond what everyone expects? Where are the leaders who produce magic moments to change games?

6. The spine of the team is poor - Hardaker hasn't had time to bed in and is a completely different player to the one he's replacing and isn't a playmaker. Williams recent games are among some of his worst and he seems incapable of creating anything. We already know Leuluai isn't creative and shouldn't be playing in the halves. Sammut hasn't even been given a chance but seems unlikely to be a huge influence. Powell doesn't seem capable of creating anything and regularly seems to be outplayed by the opposite 9. O'Loughlin is a fantastic player but no longer capable of being outstanding every single week.
Last season we could make up for some of these failings. Tomkins would be the playmaker and help our halves. Bateman and Greenwood were dangerous enough to cause problems and create overlaps all by themselves. Players like Flower, Navarrete and Clubb would stifle teams with high intensity and line speed in defence. That has disappeared (except with Flower) and now our weaknesses are being badly exposed again, as they have been during difficult periods over the last few years.
If we can't get back to being a nearly flawless 'unit' where performance of the team as a hole masks the weaknesses in certain areas, we're going to struggle unless the club directly addresses these issues.

I am also not wanting to get rid of Lam ........... for now. But the pressure will increase against him, especially if we get a real hammering next week against wire. I cannot for the foreseeable future, see where our next points will come from.

As with Wane, I feel sorry for Lam too, with the total lack of money being given to the coaches to bring in what needs to be , some better quality players.

That team is the lowest quality Wigan team I've seen since the very late 1970's .

Apart from that try by Escare , the only piece of skill all evening, the game was devoid of talent and effort.

The issue we have is usually with a new coach you’d always say ‘you can’t get rid after 5 games’ but that’s normally with a coach you’ve appointed for a period of time longer then one year. Why couldn’t we get rid of Lam? He’s babysitting the group and there’s no reason we couldn’t get shut right now, then bring another interim coach in and bin him after a couple of weeks and on and on we go.

The club has created this ridiculous situation and the usual rules do not apply because this is not normal. I hope we stick with Lam until the very end, even if that means relegation because it’s what we will have brought on ourselves by going down this route and Lammy doesn’t deserve to be hung out to dry. It was and always will have been a nostalgic trip down memory lane for Lenagan and Rads. The way Rads speaks about Lam is telling, he’s his mate and he thinks the world of him and Lenagan has admitted that Edwards is one of his Wigan heroes.


I’d never heard of Michael Maguire but he wasn’t too bad...

That's the thing, we spend right up to the cap, we just spend the money poorly. Our 20-25 players are on way more than everyone else in SL, which is baffling when you have such a conveyor belt of an Academy.

No disrespect to someone like Marshall, but he should never have been given a new contract when the next good SL winger is in our Academy now.

We need to address how we allocate the money moving forward.

Harsh on Marshall that think he's a cracking player