Correct i was out with AJ. What did you want me for?

I didn't want you mate..I just thought after that performance you would be out on the ale

instead of posting on here.

I agree with much of this post except to say I think Noble is responsible for the symptoms we see.

He has brought his people in the backroom staff in key positions, as usual its a mates mentality regardless of how good they can be.

Its very rare that a top coach recruits his mates to his staff.

Apologies for the essay i got a bit carried away & while i do think Chair is trolling a tiny bit, he sort of is right...

You don't have to accept it, of course it is unacceptable for Wigan to be in the position they find themselves in but you have to accept there is no over night fix.

As an outsider and not one for trolling I can see changes are definitely needed at the end of the season, or earlier if improvement doesn't come soon. Your end of season play off couple of gung ho games are incredibly exciting but its generally false hope as you have been left with too much to do.

While Deano makes some great points about the pre Super League Wigan set up, it was admittedly an almost impregnable team but that philosophy & set up pretty much destroyed the club financially & while it was great for 15 years, had it continued you might not have been here to talk about it now.

Rightly or wrongly the game has changed an awful lot since 1995 other teams have adapted to it better than Wigan & for Wigan to get back to the top & stay there they need stability right from the top down, a steady path of progression from juniors & academy to first team, the loyal support of their fans & 17 passionate warriors out on the pitch week in week out – a lot of that is in place.

The fans generally appear unhappy with the way you play which from the matches I’ve seen it can be one dimensional - but when you do get on top like Bradford this year you can play good rugby from anywhere on the pitch. It looks more like inconsistency than lack of ability - a couple of better players would make a hell of a difference, specifically a top Prop (or just Fielden back to his 2003ish form), so much is made of Leeds and Saints dominance which is always off the back of good go forward.

There is no doubt some of the Wigan kids are very bright & the future of the club is there in them, but they do need a coach who will give them experience without over exposing them but not leaving them on the fringes and stagnating.

I wouldn’t keep Noble myself & stuff keeping jobs for English coaches if no-one is good enough then go and get someone who is. Edwards, Meninga (gulp), Stuart, Bennett would all bring the stature that is required to the job – but whoever it is must be given at least 3 years to get the team how they want it.

I think 3 years is long enough to see an improvement, and all i've seen are backwards steps. I've never seen a Wigan team as inconsistent and poor in defence as this present lot. Perhaps the attitude has completely changed and if it has, i wonder if the play-off system is to blame? Perhaps Noble feels that we only have to perform towards the back end of the season. In reality, the chances are that if we don't finish in the top two of the table we won't get to the Grand Final (correct me if i'm wrong but only once has anyone won the GF from outside the top 2). It's always one game too far. You don't see the likes of Saints and Leeds take this attitude and it's about time our coach and playing staff bucked their ideas up.

I simply don't think you can blame noble. He managed to get us to 4th last season and that's the highest since 2004 and then in 2003 we managed 3rd but we've declined since then I think it's neither Lenegan nor Noble just a decline of the brand so to speak somehow



However, there is a point I would like to make.

[uAt this point in 2006 (well in mid April so slightly later) Millward was sacked for having not much worse a start. So I wonder what will happen now.[/u

You surely don't think he is blameless? If he has no influence and our current state is all down to the players (what else could be the problem if Noble is blameless?) what do we employ him for?




Read the thread titled : Noble's SL regular rounds record with Wigan.



I don't this point is lost on anyone. Whether IL will tolerate a full season of this if things don't improve (because there is no relegation) is the interesting question.

Dave

I said before this season started that we would be poor this year. The squad is very poor. Its full of average players with not one truely great player among it.

You cannot lose a Trent Barrett and just not replace him yet expect to be a better team. Tim Smith was never going to be the answer and i cannot see why we signed him. I think it was more of a case that we got him to try and help us push for the grand final last year with a view to him playing 7 this year alongside a new stand off. When the new stand off didnt happen IL seemed to suddenly get this idea that Tommy and Timmy would do which everybody could see was a massive gamble. Now we are stuck with 2 scrum halfs one of whom is a better hooker and the other who cannot tackle a big dinner and his defence is so poor that its virtually impossible to play him.

Your Wrong on that one, IL told me himself that Tommy & Timmy were the answer on the 7th November over a Heated debate & A couple of Wines & Lagers!

PS

I told him those 2 couldn't play together as long as they had an hole in their Ar5es! And Just because you have 100million quid doesnt make you a better judge of a player than the rest of us!

Exactly,the 7th of November. By that time it was apparent that the chances of suddenly finding a replacement for Barrett were very slim.

Also,it seems funny how Roberts move was suddenly brought forward a year. Had IL missed out on all the other available players? Was he not prepared to match the money on offer from other clubs? Not that it matters now but im sure we missed out on Greg Bird and Todd Carney? Both stand offs which means IL never had any faith in a Timmy and Tommy pairing. Charlie Seeling who seems to have very close ties with the club mentioned that Noble was hell bent on us getting Greg Bird.

And thats the problem you still expect to be top, it takes years, which your chairman has alluded to, to get to consistant top side. If you can base your team around people like sam etc. i'm sure you'll have the success you had when you built a team around Farrell/radlinski etc

So are most of the teams who have beaten us yet they play better RL than we do. The question most Wigan fans want answering is why the likes of Cas and Wakey play better more attractive RL than we do when on paper we arguably have better players in most positions.

The answer to this question many fans have come up with is that those sides are better coached than we are.

No one is under any illusion we are full of class player though we do have several current internationals in the side. The problem many fans see is Noble isn't even getting the best out of what we have.



Well the simple answer is for Noble not to play Smith and put McIllorum on the bench instead, yet each week the fans ponder what permutation Noble will come up with in the 17 (or 19) as he seemingly tries to force square pegs into round holes (like picking too many back rowers and Smith instead of McIllorum).

Dave

It was brought forward a year simply because he came available a year earlier than expected.

Whether it was a good idea to sign him a year early I have my doubts as I think other areas of the team needed addressing first. If by not signing him a year early Roberts signed for someone else and thus we would not have got him in 2010, so what?

We can only speculate that IL wanted his flying winger he was going on about and so when he was available sooner he signed him or if he was just being too nice and did Roberts a favour! I can't think of any other reasons.

Either way his signing a year early was clearly driven by events and that doesn't look good from a long term planning point of view to me.

Dave

The reason other average teams are better than us is they better halfbacks than us. We simply do not have a decent organiser/halfback in the whole team. Tommy has been proven to be a better 9 than 7,Tim Smith is not up to the job of organising and far too hot and cold and Tomkins is too young to be expected to lead us around the park and organise. There is just no organiser in the whole squad and add to that none of them can kick a long ball if their life depended on it.

What we need to do is decide is Tomkins a long term 6 or 7 and sign a world class organising halfback to partner him. somebody who can direct the play around the field every week and can put a long kick in.

I can't understand the 4 year contract. 2 years is long enough (or maybe one) for anyone who hasn't proved himself. If he has a great 2 years both parties would want to extend the contact.
If he is substandard we can let him go.

But why was the money available to sign a player a year early? Why was we not using that money to bring in a player to strengthen the team where it needs it -prop/centre/halfback ?

Those are my concerns about signing him a year early. He has taken up salary cap space and a quota slot neither of which were expected to be used on him.

Then when Bird comes available we have no slots left on the overseas quota never mind money to pay him.

Dave

True about Bird. I know we couldnt of signed him anyway but that is not the point. Didnt we go for Tod Carney as well but IL wouldnt match his wages or something? Irrelevant in the long run as both players where refused visa's but it just shows that IL and BN both knew we needed a replacement for Barrett and did not have faith in a Tommy and Timmy pairing this year. As for Roberts well IMO he was signed early just to satisfy the fans as we would of only had Riddell to show for Trent Barrett,Mark Calderwood and Micky Higham.

I think pinning it all on the half backs lack of ability and nothing else is a bit simplistic. It has got to be a combination of factors but even if you are right and it's all down to the half backs Noble compounds the problem by his selections and tactics.

Lockers can kick a long ball but rarely does. Why is this? Because that is not part of the game plan or what?



That would just take us back to where we were under Barrett. When he was here he dragged the team up a level but IMO all this did was paper over the cracks. I reckon Noble would be gone already if it were not for Barrett in 2007 and 2008 so while we may need a new half back other things need to change including the tactics.

I think this current team under achieves but then so did the 2007 and 2008 teams even with Barrett in them. I think most people share this view we have an under achieving side and when you have such a side the finger gets pointed at the coach.

Dave

I am sure the club expressed interest in Carney as well as Bird and the I am sure the reasoning given behind it when supposedly we already had our half backs sorted was Wigan are always interested in signing top quality players.

It's a pretty bullet proof statement you can't argue with! The trouble is we were in no position to even consider Bird with both Roberts and Phelps signed up taking quota slots. So the club left itself no room to manoeuvre as it had filled the quota with these two.

Dave

Personally Dave i dont think the team underachieves at all. I think far too many of our players are over-rated by our own fans.

I thought organising and kicking were 2 of Riddell's strong suits?

You may have a point re the quality of the halves, but lots of other teams have better hookers too. I was delighted when he had his 1 storming game and expected him to kick on. Sadly, if anything he's regressed.

It's so depressing! Emergency centres, right wing conundrum, gruntless props and mis firing Aussies. It can hardly get any worse IMO.

I dont believe that for one minute Dave. If you have faith in your halfback pairing you dont go signing another halfback just for the sake of it because he is a good player. What that shows to me is they had major doubts about Tommy and Timmy. If there was no salary cap i could understand their statement but under the salary cap you cannot afford to just sign a players who you do not really need especially not when there are other positions in the squad in desperate need of strengthening.

I agree with the salary cap you have to plan your squad recruitment carefully not react to events which is what the club seemingly did with Roberts and then Bird when he suddenly became available.

I said signing Roberts was event driven and not planned at the time we were rumoured to be getting him early but IL was still flavour of the month so I am not sure my view was very popular.

I had thought there was some planning going on for example the length of Phelps contract coincides (when it expires) with a further reduction in the quota. He wanted a longer deal and Wigan didn't give him one as it would have meant a precious quota spot going on him that year (whether he should have been signed at all is another matter). But then when the club signed Roberts early that didn't look like planning to me.

As to the half backs I had hoped Smith and S Tomkins could pair up and form a new partnership but this is/was too radical for Noble. Smith is a 7 and S Tomkins a better stand off than either Smith or TL. I doubt Noble will try it given Smith's defence but I don't reckon he has worked out half the positions in the side in terms of his best combination including half back. Noble's solution was to go for Bird and when that could not come off he has been left with what he has got but has not made the best of it IMO.

Dave