great team

What are the first three words of the post?

He did slightly more than drop a goal, but that would happen in most sports. Andy Murray, Lewis Hamilton. I mean Hamilton just drives round in a car that is faster than everyone elses. Be like Usain Bolt celebrating beating Tony Clubb in a race.

Do you not think the player who scores the winning goal for England in a WC would be a hero?

Sadly, as nobody gives a about RL anymore the same probably wouldn't happen with us.

Graham Lowe revolutionised Wigan and the British game
In 6 months he moved Wigan forward 10 years.
He was a very emotional guy who still had a bit of the old style coaching about him (mixed on with the obvious advance australian methods) and there numerous fall outs (not that i blame him for them) with the big names.

Well never k ownif Monie could have done again Lowe did (or vice versa) but I believe Monie just has the edge as he built on what Lowe did, but as a man manager he was superior for me.

I always looked at it like this
For a one off game I would take Lowe
For a multiple year stint id have taken Monie

Would you say that Wane was more like Lowe?

I used to think that, but now I see him as more in-between the 2
From what I've heard from people in the dressing room, and then through a quirk of luck ending up sitting next to him through a whole Wigan game, he isn't as fiery as most people expect.

And from speaking to people who have worked with him, I think a lot of people underestimate the work he did from the bottom of the club upwards. I think he's a great man manager as well.

A mate of mine (ex professional who played at a high club level) has a brother in law who is involved in the coaching of a national sporting organisation. They were looking to improve and asked around other sporting organisations and were told to go and speak to the British cycling team for example amongst others and when they approached the RFL they ended up spending 2 weeks with wigan (this was about 3 years ago).
They couldn't speak highly enough of Wigan RLFC and in particular Wane. He said the structure from the youth scouting, mentoring, education and then pathways through to the academy/reserves/1st team was as good as anything they'd seen.

That reinforced everything that I'd been told about the club and Wane.

Wane IMO will never get the credit he deserves from a lot of quarters, but he would be up there in the conversation when talking about best Wigan coaches

I've always felt - and there's no science behind this, it's just a suspicion - that Shaun Wane suffered from the unfixable problem of not having an Australian accent. It's been so long since the British game has seen a revolutionary coach who was actually British that a lot of fans, perhaps unconsciously, seem to assume it will never happen again.

I'm not saying that Shaun was revolutionary, by the way, just that he was very good, very successful, and yet weirdly underappreciated in his time.

His record speaks for itself. Certainly my annoyance with him, was the "up and down" of our levels of performance during the normal season.

2013 we quite clearly put the cue on the rack after what had happened in 2012 but it shows no respect the fans that still paid each week. That happened throughout his reign.

You can also argue that up until the playoffs we were pretty dull to watch so why should fans pay their money to watch until then?

The fact is though, we won trophies and that is what matters. I would take dull rugby and success above a Cas 2017 or Saints 2018 season every time.

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Up until the 2016 season (around roughly when Deacon/Harris left) we played very good rugby under Wane. After that we was often very dull to watch until the playoffs however he won us 3 trophies in his last 3 consecutive years so ultimately his duller style worked. he was very unlucky in the 2016/2017 season to have so many injured players every week and still put up some very good results including a world club challenge win and grand final win. I can only imagine if he was in charge of this current crop, we’d clean up every week

The ones who were old enough at the time do!

Sorry, Grimmy, for missing the first three words in my haste to reply.

Will look more closely in future if only to prevent the smart a***s being sarcastic or acting like children!

Remind me why we don't play at Central Park anymore?

Ah the "good old days" when average crowds at Central Park were lower that at the JJB/DW. Rose (Cherry and White) tinted glasses everywhere.

There's no Rose tinted glasses. Most people are well aware of the limitations of CP and acknowledge it wouldn't have worked in the modern era.

I'm not sure what the love in that you have with the DW is all about tho?

It's an upgrade on CP in regards to it being more modern & that's about it. Outside of that it's a pretty poor stadium. I find it soulless and, imo, it takes a min of 20k for it to even to start to come alive. All that's before you talk about the shared aspects, which don't appeal to me. I want our home ground to scream Wigan RL and not Latics.

I also think it's too far outside of town to have a couple of pre and post game beers in a decent "Wigan RL" boozer - granted that's not for everyone, but something that I've looked for previously.

The move to the DW was done out of necessity, but that's doesn't mean people have to love it. Nor does that mean people aren't allowed to remember CP and some of the good times we had there.

So what do you proposed we do?

It's a good deal for us, so we'll make do and live with it. I'm under no illusions that it's more than a satisfactory situation and that it works for the club.

It just doesn't mean I have to love it, or make out it's the dogs b*ll*cks either. Imo it's functional and serves a purpose.

I'm not wedded to one idea when it comes to the DW either. Some posters on here have absolute tunnel vision when it comes the the stadium and won't listen to what other fans think - they know best and that's it. Personally I just trust IL. If he wanted to buy the stadium (which it looks like he did), then I'm behind him on that. If he wants to continue to rent, again I'm behind that. If he ever found a way to build us a proper home, then not only would I trust him - I'd be over the moon too.

It's a 10-15 minute walk. It's hardly on the outskirts miles away from civilisation like some modern grounds.

The DW has its issues, but had our entire business plan not fell into ruin after losing one game then who knows whether we may still have a ground of our own or not.

Personally I think that 15 min walk has a bit of an impact, certainly when the weather isn't great. All personal perspective tho I guess.

How many RL grounds are much nearer the town centre than the DW?

Nobody is saying the DW is the ideal, but merely stating that Central Park wasn't the utopia that many remember, and I was one who was there when the ground record of 47,747 was set, but also remember many sub 7K attendances.

btw I agree with you regarding Ian Lenagan, I dread to think where we would be without him.

Starting at the Berkley square its not much further in walking to the Begbies Traynor stadium then it would be to Central Park. Fact is its a pound a piece in a joe baxi anyroad to the iron bridge.

St Helens’ and Warrington’s stadium sit a similar distance out of the town centre and the pubs/bars (granted HJ has The Rodney opposite and The Kings Head down the road). There is a similar travel time from the train station to the stadium and decent pubs to the ground as well.

The DW is far from perfect but if you compare walking distance from The Moon Under Water to CP and The Moon Under Water to DW it’s about the same. The 10-15min walk is too far argument just doesn’t stand up in anyway.

Leeds, Hull, HKR, Catalan, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Salford are all further from their town (city) centres than the DW is from Wigan centre.

I'm not sure where the whole town centre argument has come from? Everyone is different, but when I think of CP and pubs I'm thinking more of Wigan Lane tbh.

My OP was all about drinking in a Wigan Rugby pub. One that isn't built into a stadium, or run by the Riversiders clique.

It's probably just something that doesn't stand up in the modern era, but I know there's a few famous footy pubs that are almost in touching distance of grounds.

Fair enough - I assumed town centre pubs as opposed to Wigan Lane pubs.

Just checked my OP and I said a pub in town, so my fault. I was definitely more thinking about the Oak than a Moon or Berkley, but should have been clearer.