You must be hell to live with mate.



A little bit of praise goes a long way I tend to find. Are you really that miserable or have you just created this online persona?

This or maybe Gelling at centre with Bateman 2nd row with Farrell on bench instead of Powell

Are you always this easily pleased?

For me Wane is currently doing the bare minimum expected from a Wigan coach but yet he's made out to be some sort of messiah.

I see the work Powell has done with a very ordinary set of players and I wonder how or why we struggle with some of the quality at our disposal.

I think Wigan deserve more than 2nd place finishes and early cup exits you obviously don't.

Er, the season isn't over...


Powell has indeed done a very decent job. His team still finished nine points behind us, though.

Who rattled your cage?
I am actually a SW fan but if he let Thornley go without too much of an effort to retain him then I think he was probably wrong in this instance. I don't know if this was the case so I said so. Is that ok?
Just because I'm a fan of the club and the coach it doesn't mean I think they are infallible.
It's called having an opinion and not being a nodding dog to everything you are told or led to believe.
Also if I don't know something I actually say so. Is that ok?
I said in January we were very weak in the centres and it could be said so are several other teams as there is a distinct lack of quality centres in the competition. I think that is a fact so is that ok?

Burgess didn't look fully fit on Friday night and the more important the game the bigger the risk.
If he isn't fit then we have two excellent wingers who can play.
Centre are the vulnerable positions with Gelling dropped and Sarginson injured whoever takes over is filling in. Is that the situation we are going into the semis with?
I'd play Gelling at 3 as I think him, Joel and Manfredi are a lethal attacking force. They are big, fast, mobile and great passing and offloading games with Dom a terrific finisher. At times earlier in the season they were virtually unplayable. Daft as Gelling can be I do think Waney should have kept him in the team and worked hard to get that attacking threat back into form after all the injuries. Despite his howler against Saints Bowen was selected and missed another bomb when it was contested by Cas. He got away with it that time, often he doesn't as we well know. Waney is taking a massive risk with Bowen at full back going into a semi and hopefully a final. After the Saints debacle I think he should have gone with Hampshire rather than Bowen.

The 19 will probably be the usual suspects, the 17 could define our season.

Gelling always take 5 or 6 games to get firing again which is the big worry for me. I think he's a risk we may have to take though if Burgess isn't fully fit.

I'll be surprised if Gelling plays even if Burgess isn't fit. Wane wouldn't drop him for Cas and then pick him for a Semi against Huddersfield.

Probably right. I expect it to be Bateman and Gildart but that's really risky against two big centres in Cudjoe and Wardle.

Err who said that it is......

Do people just read what they want with posts?

No one has said Cas are a better side than us. All I said was Powell has squeezed the absolute maximum out of what is a very average bunch of youngsters, journeymen & players who failed at big clubs. I don't think you'll see much improvement from them as DP has already gotten far more than he should have.

Now i don't think you can say the same with Wane at Wigan as there's been quite a few established playets who have simply been 'ok' (Smith, Crosby, Charnley, Mossop, Joel etc).

NO that isn't a fact. That is YOUR opinion. Do you really not know the difference?

A few weeks ago, I asked who people would like to see replace Shaun Wane from elsewhere in Super League.

I expected to get no responses, but I ended up getting quite a few. Someone even listed half the other coaches in the competition, which was kind of silly but that said more about the poster than anything else.

More seriously, Powell's name came up more often than most, and while he's certainly done well with relatively limited resources (are Cas up to the Cap?, because if so that means their resources aren't much more limited than Wigan's), you've got to consider this - would he be worth ditching a multi trophy-winning coach for? It's okay to say that he's probably not won anything because he hasn't had the financial back-up, but that's an assumption, which means that it would be a hell of a gamble.

At the end of the day, SW has won near enough everything as a coach, and DP virtually nothing. That's the only real stat we should consider.

I simply used DP as an example of a coach who is squeezing the most out of the talent at his disposal. Could he do that at Wigan - who knows? Do I currently think Wane is doing enough with what he has - no.

Now I'll be happy if we win the GF and Wane will have shut his critics like me up. Let's however not let skirt over the fact many fans on here (yourself included) have said this hasn't been a great season for us. Going one step further i don't think last year was a great season either and I'm talking about events prior to the GF.

Is it not perfectly logical and within rights to say that if we don't win something this year there's a healthy debate to be had on SW position at the club? The double season has rightly earned him time and praise but how long does that last before he must deliver again? I will say this season isn't over yet and it's better to take stock after the GF.

Also why limit the search to just SL? Madge was a relatively unknown prospect from the NRL but managed to change the game. Tim Sheens (one of the great coaches of the last 20 years) is applying his trade in SL. To limit your search to only SL is baffling.

SW needs a grand final victory to make up for the two terrible efforts in the cup in the last two years v Cas then Hull KR IMO. No major trophies in three of his four seasons in charge simply wouldn't be good enough given the resources he has at his disposal. Leeds haven't gone two seasons in a row without a major trophy since 05-06 and Maguire won a major trophy in both of his seasons so i don't think it's too high an expectation. Like you i just don't think he gets the most out of the players, too many seem to coast whereas under Maguire most players seemed to over-perform.

I think that's a fair assessment. The double win was a great achievement and bought him time and banked him a heap of goodwill. It won't however last forever and fans can't keep using it as a get of jail free card (especially when you look at our run in the cup).

I agree about the coasting part. We know the talent is there as there's a good chunk of England internationals in the side. Imo the level of performance we've seen in the super 8s is what we should see week in week out.

I don't disagree with this in principle, and yes, you're quite right - I think we've had a bad year by our own standards (though a Grand Final would go some way to remedying that). But I always feel that you should only let someone decent go if the person lined up to replace them is notably better, not a gamble. The NRL is the obvious hunting ground. But I suppose being able to tempt away one of the top coaches from there is another matter. I'm not sure that, at 64, Tim Sheens would be the solution. However, if Madge was looking to come back ... that would be different.

I do understand the points made by yourself and others about the standards and quality of performance this season. I just think that SW is underrated because of his lack of, shall we say 'polish'. He has worked wonders bringing the youth into the team. I don't think any other coach could say this. He has managed to keep us at the top or near to it in each of his four seasons.

Ok we may not win something this year, which would make it two in a row, but I think it would be folly to get rid. He is building something long lasting here. I take it you enjoyed the U19s GF on Friday as I did. That's 7 out of 8 now, and much of that is down to Wane.

Let's say Madge did want to come back, how long before he buggered off back to a better job in Australia again? Then there would be no SW to pick up the pieces. Success with Madge isn't guaranteed, as the Rabbitohs have found this season.

IL is building something with SW that has solid foundations and is a long term plan, something that is pretty unusual in modern sport.

These are also good reasons to hang onto SW.

There are people on the other website who seem to have a problem with everything he says and does. I don't share that view. And I'm less worried about the polish. For me, it's got to be about results. What I don't want to see is another Nobby-type situation, where we regularly get to semis (or even finals) but don't win anything, and yes, it's far too early to talk about that. At present, SW's won more finals than he's lost.

I appreciate that Madge let us down a bit, seemingly opting for the very first Australian job that came along. That said, I can't help but feel that the further and further we move away from the iron-clad Wigan team Madge built, the less effective an outfit we seem to be. Earlier on this season, I was really worried - I thought we looked feeble across the board. The results at Castleford and Catalan were shockers of a type I thought we'd long put behind us. But if something dramatic now happens - like we get to OT and win the GF - it will be quite remarkable, and I think IL would be very foolish indeed to remove a coach who achieved that.

It's all up in the air at present, for me. If we win nothing this year, I still think SW will keep his job. But if that happens, and then the same happens in 2016 and 2017, or, God Forbid, the malaise just keeps getting worse, then I'd expect there might be a decison to make.

And just on Madge the tactical genius, it seems to me that this season, when 'steamroller them down the middle with George Burgess and co' didn't work, the Rabbitohs, for all their resources, didn't seem to have much of a Plan B. Unless you count 'hope that GI does something amazing'. Their fans aren't happy. Here's a typical comment:

[i- First team since the Melbourne Storm of 2010 (who had all competition points stripped) to not reach week 2 of the finals as defending premiers.
- First team since the Saints of 2011 to miss the top four as defending premiers (they were 5th)
- First team since the Sea Eagles of 2009 to lose a week 1 final as defending premiers (and they were eliminated from 5th place under old system due to 7th and 8th winning their matches under old system)
- First team since 2007 Broncos (ignoring the Storm's 2010 season) to finish outside the top 6 as defending premiers (they were 8th, Souths were funnily enough 7th that season)
- First team since 2006 Wests Tigers (-75) to finish a season with a negative points difference as defending premiers (even Melbourne, with no competition points in 2010, finished with +132) with a -2 PD
- First team since 2012 Sea Eagles to finish a season with over 400 points against as defending premiers with 467 points conceded (Manly conceded 403)
- First team since 2009 Gold Coast Titans to lose a finals game to a team with a negative points difference (they lost to the Broncos). The Sharks also had a negative points difference, for the record.
- Only the 2015 Rabbitohs and Sharks have qualified for the finals with a negative points difference since the 2009 Broncos did it with -55 in the above example. Cronulla also did it with 32 premiership points, while Souths did it with 30.[/i

Yes. Obviously we can't go on losing finals or worse, not getting to them ad infinitum. But you have to be careful against knee jerk reactions. Those two performances were indeed shocking, and I agree, we haven't seen the like for many years. This season has been odd since the first game. 16-0 up against twelve men at Widnes and we contrived to draw. That for me was even worse than the Cas game. Our discipline let us down more than any lack of effort. And to be fair we have pulled that particular situation around.

Let's face it. Wigan lost a shocker in the cup. But in the league no-one has outperformed us. In the end the difference between us and Leeds was twenty odd points. Less than a point per game. The supposed champions haven't been able to build on their success (!) of last year either.

I don't like judging seasons on one-off games. Last season we won nothing. But anyone who is fair minded would have to conclude that Wigan would have won but for one moment of madness. So to talk about removing the coach because of incidents that he can't control is wrong. I still believe that his best season was his first. We won the LLS and lost to a last minute penalty against Leeds, who won it from fifth. We were far and away the best team that season. In fact we were much better than the following season when we won the double!

So just looking at trophies alone doesn't really tell the whole story. Is Nathan Brown some sort of coaching genius because he managed to beat twelve men? I would suggest that he struck lucky. If you can guarantee me a luckier coach than SW then I'm in. But by its' nature luck can't be predicted.

No don't you see - when Brian Noble coaches it's "Five drives and a kick" when Madge coaches it's 'structured' RL - different thing entirely!!!!
How dare you question Madge's tactical genius?

i never claimed they were world class

I obviously lack your intellect so obviously I don't.
If you think one rookie centre and a makeshift second rower make it a good combination then good for you.

Didn't say you did but just pointing out that in comparison to truely world class players, guys like Wardle and Cudjoe will have thoughts on who they find easier or who they find tougher to play against. They're a fine pairing at superleague level.

FWIW there isn't a world class centre in superleague and that includes Hemmings/Stevo's new fave in Kallum Watkins (who's got plenty to prove still).

fair enough, but the way teams bring in players who weren't originally in the squad then it's not that easy to know who you're up against!