I think our kicking game needs to be worked on. Not one of them could get a kick right. Finch & tommy isn't the right partnership. Bring in Sam Powell

We got to have a game plan with a plan B without this we will look as clueless as we did Sunday and in many games which we go behind early or are at half time.

Wane as I thought originally would be and thats tatically lacking.

He has talked a lot since getting the job saying new fast and skill style. None of which was present on sunday to me it looked the same way as under Madge but the with the squad not having the pre-season which madge would give them.

Fitness was a massive concern for me on Sunday and also control of the ruck was none existant seems Wane as got rid of the third man in the tackle too which has caused us to lose control. Think selection is going to be Wane downfall this season, I think he has a few players who are like his untouchables and will be ever present this year. Tuson, Flower, Eric and Mcllorum.

My 17 would be

Tomkins
Josh
Gelling
George
Pat
Finch
Tommy
Mossop
Mcllorum
Prescott
Hock
Hansen
Lockers

Subs
Mellor
Lima
Fielden
Farrell/Eric

Early doors it all looks a bit Brian Noble but it is just that, early doors.

Never convinced by the Wane appointment to be honest but I hope I am proven wrong.

Recruitment not great short term, we still need a hooker and a half badly next year, not bringing one in this year I feel will put significant pressure on Wane.

To be fair I don't think there are many in RL circles who were/are convinced. Watching and listening to him he doesn't come across well at all and I wonder how effective he is at managing the players with such a poor communication style. It's early days though so wait and see - every year since I can remember there's a massive over reaction to a first round defeat from supporters of every club. it may take some time for him to make his mark with the players and no matter what he says he will find the transition tough.

Only my personal view but I never felt he was a good appointment and I certainly don't think he's a long term option for Wigan.

If you are playing as poorly 5 games in that's when you need to get a bit twitchy, not now.

Ill stick my neck on the line. Shaun Wane will fail at Wigan. I hope im wrong because he loves the club and hes waited his turn and i like him as a person, hes a straight talking chap. This isnt just on yesterdays result but that has strengthened my belief.

To me Shaun talks an excellent game but does not have what it takes technically to be a head coach at a club like Wigan. I also see slight signs of panic already in his interview after yesterdays game. After the Salford friendly he came out and said he was disappointed and we'll fix it quickly and blamed poor execution. Again in his latest interview he blamed exactly the same things and promised to fix it. He had a certain worried look about him IMO. What happens if we lose to Leeds? Is he going to promise to fix it again? Can he handle the pressure?

He seems too set in his ways and determined to make some kind of impact immediately that isnt really needed. Hes tried to fix something that wasnt really broken and just needed gradually tweaking.

Not helping him is the fact weve lost some very good experienced players and replaced them basically with 4 reserve graders. Add to that we lost Gleeson and Riddell beginning of last year and never replaced them either and it doesnt look good IMO.

I still think our biggest problem was the fact we never suitably replaced Gleeson and Riddell, they were so influential in that 2010 title run. I'm sorry but I don't see Goulding as a worthy replacement, I hope to hell he proves me wrong and will happily admit it if he does, but I think sadly the best thing Goulding ever did was have Gleeson on his left.

We did well to hide that fact last year, but seriously... how many results did we have to 'grind' out last year, a lot of games could have gone either way and our season would have looked pretty dire in comparison. (I know we played well in CC, I'm talking league here) So again we loose more players end of last season and I fear we won't be able to cope and hide the missing factors this year. Not to mention... Anyone care to hazard a guess where our kicking game will come from this year? We need a 7 with a top drawer kicking game, Leuluai is not this player, he is a world class 9 and should be playing 9!

I've not seen the under 20's so tell me, does either Mellor or Powell have a kicking game that can be developed to be Wigan standard?

I'm not basing all this on Sunday's performance, these were my concerns before the first game and they are still my concerns now.

Powell's kicking game is second to none at academy level, but he hasn't been kicking that well during pre-season games. It's probably one of the strongest parts of his game.

Mellor's kicking game has also improved a lot over the last year or so. He's not as consistent as Powell but can sometimes be more willing to take risks, has a very accurate cross field kick from right to left and I also recall a very clever little 'misdirected' kick in an academy game last year where he looked to be aiming for the right corner only to side foot it towards the posts for a chasing player to score.

Expect all kicking ability to have disappeared from their game within a couple of first team appearances. I just can't understand where this terrible kicking game has come from. Even Deacon was below par.

If we chop and change after the first game I think that would be a tad harsh, Id tell the players who under performed where they went wrong and give them a chance to rectify it against Leeds, if they fail then drop them. Dropping a player after the first game of the season would knock their confidence a great deal. Same team for me with a lot of work put in on the kicking side of things with Sam taking the role of long distance kicking.

Its too early to write off Wane and his ideas. The recruitment has been based around the pack with only Gelling and and the academy signing from Wales to bolster the backs. I think the pack will improve through out the season and will be rotated to rest players. It is the back line that looks sluggish in comparison to Rhinos and Wire.

Spot on. I think Wane is far too old school with all this toughness malarky, every interview i hear is 'im rough me' or 'i had a tough upbringing' or 'im a tough taskmaster' or 'im a control freak'. Tbh, i am sick of hearing him bang on about his own management style, the guy bloody loves himself. He's completely different to Madge and he seems adamant that he is a much better coach. Thats fair enough but he talks as if the last two years were a disaster, which they certainly weren't. He has talked about playing good exciting rugby, much better than under Maguire, but sundays game was one of the worst since Noble. Talk about putting pressure on yourself. I just hope we don't lose on Saturday, even if Shaun 'doesnt see it coming', he'll be running out of punishments soon!

some of our signings remind me a bit of the signings we made pre the relegation year. we have definately replaced quality with quantity.

I think its very very early to be writing off Wane and his ideas. I think he made an error by not playing enough first team warm up games which showed on Sunday but i actually like the way our coaching set up looks Wane is a Wiganer he understands what we want and he wont take no crap from the players, Iestyn harris should bring attacking ideas and i thought he did a good job with both Wales and the Crusaders.

What worries me is the lack of a plan b on Sunday we obviously thought our forwards would run over the top of a young hudds pack and we didnt they controlled the game better and with a poor kicking game from us had good field position. I was also concerned with the after match comments that "he didnt see it coming" does this show that he under estimated hudds and expected us to walk over them at SL level you cant afford to do that to any team.

Hopefully an early set back will be a bit of motivation for Wane on Saturday and we can get our season going

You think? I reckon we played worse and won under Madge. I'd point the finger at Hull at home last year which we nicked 14-12 with 12 men.

Even if it was the worst since Noble, I still don't think it was on a par with those kind of bad performances we saw back under him in early 2009.

This line of Wane's interview after the game was quite worrying for me

It was disappointing. I never saw it coming

If he's taking team lightly then it needs to stop asap last season we played Cas and Leeds with weak squads and nearly lost both once these players who aren't regs get a shot they give it 110% to impress

As apprehensive as I am about the new coaching team, I think a bit of reality check is in order here.

When and where did Wane say he was better coach than Maguire? Did he ever even imply that the last 2 years were "a disaster"? When did he ever say we would play a "better" brand of good exciting rugby compared to Maguire?

We're all disappointed after the performance on Sunday, but don't put words in the bloke's mouth.

Where is Amos Roberts? Is he still injured? I'd put him in at full-back, move Sam back into the halves with Finch and Tommy at 9.

How long are Prescott and Fielden likely to be out for? We definitely need some size and agression up front.

my sentiments exactly. however i beleive that both amos and fielden are available for selection and were for the hudds game. i could well be wrong.

however i dont think we'll see sam at 6 again in his wigan career, he is definitely playing on orders. he hardly ever takes the ball in when under the bomb etc and seems happy to take the pass even if it looks risky - no idea where these tactics are coming from and it wasnt just the hudds game, it was teh same since after the CC Final last year. bizarre. either that or he is playing with a knock which is more than worrying.

poor amos needs throwing back in at the deep end, sod his confidence get him playing and it will soon come!

The quote "I didn't see it coming" is odd. Prior to the game Hudds had won on 4 of their previous 5 visits to the DW. Now it's 5 from 6. Yes they had a weakened squad and ours was better.
We had better players Hudds has the better team!

The pack not winning their battle was due to a lack of size. Farrell, Tuson and Flower are too many smaller men when big men are needed mostly these days. Spencer and Hughes to replace Flower and Tuson. Once the Hudds forwards knew they could hold their own it was enthusiasm that got them through together with skill, Danny Brough and a greater will to win.

What happens against Leeds happens. The critical tests are Bradford and Cas away the following weeks. Two good wins and this type of thread will not appear again. Two losses against those and the thread will go to 100 pages.

Come on everyone. It's the first game of the season for Christ's sake.

Goulding played well against Huddersfield IMO. He looked more assured in the role than Joel. It was Pat & Carmont (at least in an attacking sense) that was poor on Sunday, although I take your point over the course of a season.

It is laughable how people are showing a restrained disquiet over Wane after one game. It was a poor one but I expect us to perform better against Leeds, even if we do not necessarily win.

The issue is always going to be with the halves. Thomas 'can't kick' Leuluai shouldn't ever be first receiver. Personally I would bring Matty Russell in against Leeds and put him on the bench. He has played in the warm up games & early season a youngster is less likely to be destroyed by a good attacking side trying to find its feet.

Put Russell on the bench and then bring him on for McIlorum, move Tommy to 9 and put Sam in the halves with Russell taking the full back spot.

He has implied that he didn't agree with Maguire's tactics(drawing the teams in to making mistakes) and promised to play a more exciting brand (hence a lot of work on ball handling skills). Im not doubting his ability as coach, none of us know how good he will be and im certainly not jumping on his back after one game, i just think he is trying too hard to stamp authority on the team, and his expectations are very high. I read an interview were he stated he wanted to win every game this year, maybe this is why he didnt see sundays defeat coming!

So snide sarcasm and invented quotes designed to make the bloke look stupid ("I'm tough, me!"icon_wink.gif are not getting on his back?

Get a grip.

It's the first game of the season. As others have said, if the team is still misfiring in a few weeks time, we'll know he's out of his depth. Until then, cut him a little slack at least.

Cut him slack for not using friendlys why they are there?

Cut him slack for underestimating a pretty decent side?

I'm not saying Wane out or he's doing a **** job but he's made 2 very poor choices and we are only 1 game into the season which it pretty scary

Nail on head
Sundays performance was a continuation of where we left of last year, the difference being we can't rely on supierior fitness levels to scrape us through this season.
IMHO, Wayne or whoever is in charge has a massive job to turn this squad into serious challengers for a top four spot.
To repeat what has been said by many on here, we desperatley need :-
1,A quality scrum half with a good kicking game and the skills to run at defences, drawing the opposition, thus leaving gaps outside for stand off,Sam (talent wasted at full back) to expose.
2, Tommy at hooker in a fully fit pack.
3, A centre who can make space for Charnley (as good as any winger in SL) if the lad Gelling is a good as Deano says he his then give him game time.
I don't buy into this notion that young players need to be nurtured in the U20s for years before we try them, all the greats have made it from very early starts, Murphy, Edwards,Robinson, Gregory etc, etc.
As I said I dont think this will be easy for any coach to turn around, and I'm not advocating making sweeping changes, but if we don't start implementing some new game plans, results like Sundays are not going to be rairities.
Ever the optimist though, I think we will beat Leeds on Saturday.

Wane has brought any early criticism on himself.

Ever since it was made public he was the new coach hes been doing nothing but bragging how hes going to do this and that and how hes going to make us some kind of lethal weapon in attack. Add to that the way hes been less than complimentary about Madges tactics/gameplan in some of his interviews and i think you can forgive people for questioning him. The way he was talking our forwards were going to run harder and our backs were going to be so skillful and fast that they would run rings around the opposition. He was looking to win every game in his own words.

I think people have a right to question him even after one game and a friendly against Salford when the performances were dire and nothing like he had promised. There was no signs of what he promised on show, infact quite the opposite.

He may turn out to of been right as the season progresses but i think most people expected to see something much better than they have done so far and that is down to Wanes big talking throughout the off season.