Last year we only had one first team friendly and went in to the Hudds game very underdone, played poorly and lost.
This year we have Leigh on the 6th Jan, HKR on 13th and Wire the 26th.
Whether we are to have one on the weekend of 19/20th I don't know but those three with the Wire game a week prior to the season start is far better than last year.
Looks like that's one thing SW could have done better last year which he is improving for next season. Lesson learned perhaps?

Maybe.

But just hope that none of our players get injured in any of those matches.

Otherwise, you'll have the same people who last season were whining that we were under-prepared, slating Wane for taking too many risks by playing in "meaningless friendlies".

Basically, our coach is screwed either way when it comes to dealing with people like that.
They will always find some stick or other to beat him with, then claim that they "knew this would happen" all along.

Wane can't win

He fields a young side and the lads are defeated! He gets a load of flak for fielding too many youngsters!

We get beat in the playoffs and everybody says we need to rotate the squad more!

Some of you guys could see the negative in a worldwide cure for a worldwide problem.........!

Wane did a cracking job last year, I for 1 wish him the best for next year!

Defeated before we start.................

Here here!!

We played better rugby than anybody for more games than anybody and the handful of games we lost were by narrow margins. I know people will say we lost when it mattered but it was by the skin of a worms tooth both semi finals.

I can't wait for 6 Jan and for the whole season to unfold.

At last, a bit of positivity.
Roll on 6th January.

I'm sure we had 3 pre-season games last year as well FT (its somewhere on cherryandwhite, but wasnt it Wire, Leigh and Salford ???)
However, we only chose to play a 1st XIII in one of them, so mis-used the opportunity to get everyone up and running for the Giants opener.

The lesson will only have been learned if we either :

play the main squad and get them ready with a few key back-up players get a decent run

OR

play more of the youngsters, but ensure that if they play well, they get into the team for the start of the season

Last season we did neither. However, we did win the hub-cap, so not all bad



SW had an excellent season, but I'm sure that he will admit to 2 main failings. Losing the pressure games through in-discipline (MM, GH principal offenders here), and not blooding the young backs as efficiently as he did the forwards.

There was definitely a trip to HKR away as a friendly last year, as well.

There was.

Absolutely freezing.

SW's team were top of the league which is excellent in his first season as head coach.
No matter who or where you are, if you have been an assistant and then appointed head, after the first year you look at the things that have been done well and also those that could have been done better.
SW I'm sure was no different.
I thought the Salford game was the only one where he played his best 17 that were fit. Wasn't Leigh the U20s? Hudds Lockers test game where all 1st teamers were off the field after 10 mins or so? HKR much the same.
We may have players who cop a knock but that's the risk with trial games. Often we go with 20 players for a friendly too.
Fixtures out, squad announced and season tickets bought, can't wait!

There's some ridiculous criticism of Shaun Wane on this forum, the team did played fantastically in the league last season and gave within a whisker of getting to both finals, if Wane would have decided to make the team take it easy for most of the season it does mean we would have beaten Leeds in both semi's. It's not really up to us fans to tell him how to coach the team , who knows how the 2013 season will pan out? Seems some people just get really bored and spout rubbish during the off season.

I really wish people would stop mentioning it was Wane's first season as if that means any mistakes were excusable because he was some kind of rookie. He has been in coaching for years and had two years to learn of Madge who even though [ihe[/i was was rookie won a GF in [ihis[/i first season. The effect he had on the team was plain to see. If Wane has learned anything from 2012 it ought to be he didn't know better than the previous coach.

I think that at Wigan as with any other of the big clubs in Super League criticism will always come with a season that does not deliver a major trophy.

Having said that I think that even if you do win major trophies like Mike Maguire then you will still get criticism.

What has perhaps not helped Wane was his pre-season comments that he made regarding the previous coach who proved to be a revelation at Wigan following the Noble era.

The cold hard fact is that whilst Wane has done very well in 2012 he also made some basic mistakes that can not be attributed to the players on the field, his basic decision making in the most important game of the season being one example.

Wane is correct in wanting to win every game but he needs to back that up with his actions and decisions as the head coach, and some of the criticism is warranted.

I find it amusing to see that some peoples reaction to us failing to peak at the correct times of the season is to ensure we have more warm up friendlies before the start of SL.

I thought the same but felt I might get slated for commenting on here .
Next season should be fun with all the top teams taking it easy until August when they all want to finish 5th and win the GF.
We could see the top four looking like Hull, HKR, Bulls and London

So basically, we have to win every game, by a lot of points, and keep plenty of clean sheets, get the new lads playing well immediately, blood more youngsters, not give away any penalties or get players banned, and win the hub cap, the GF and the CC, or Wane gets the boot?



=#FF0000[size=200WANE OUT!![/size

Yeah!
Also if he replaces an injured player by moving another established player out of position in a semi final rather than playing one of the young lads (Leeds CC semi) and we lose then that's STUPID and not good enough. However if we replace an injured player with a young lad rather than switching an established player out of position (Leeds playoffs semi) and still lose then that's also STUPID and not good enough!

SORT IT OUT WANE!

Yes we lost the semi final against Leeds IMHO we should have moved Richards to full back and brought in Thornley or Gelling on to the wing .Jack Murphy did not disgrace himself all that much Ive seen our golden boy Tomkins miss kicks like that but hey who knows what would have happened if Richards was at full back that night would we have been in the GF ?? .

whats to say gelling or thornley, wouldnt have made a similar mistake though. but this is all hypothetical i guess.

You cannot compare last season to the Brian Noble era, that is completely unfair on Wane. Under Noble players were getting worse, and we got beaten by poor sides on a regular basis. Okay we only got to a semi final last season, but in a broader sense the club is heading in the right direction. It would have been an absolute tragedy for RL and Wigan if we had won a Super League under Noble, because we wouldn't have deserved it (just like leeds this year). Secondly by 2009 Noble had 3 and a half years at wigan, and nearly a decade as a coach. This is wanes first season, so we have to give him the chance to see out his contract, and im sure IL will!!!

Beating first, second & fourth placed teams in consecutive weeks, 2 of them away, says different.

No, and based on the supporters I have spoken to I have not heard anybody say that Wane needs to win everything in order to stay in his job.

In my opinion the consensus is that people feel that Wane has done very well to finish top of the pile last season but that some of his decision making has been questionable and has led to us being knocked out of the competition, particularly the defeat against Leeds in the play-offs but we got kicked to death twice by Leeds.

Now if Wane again makes what people perceive to be bad decisions in 2013 when it comes to tactics and team selection (both responsibilities of the head coach) then I do think that his future at the club will be under much more scrutiny.

With the changes we have seen at the club with player departures I think 2013 will be a much bigger and tougher task for Wane but we all know what Ian Lenagan expects and its no different to what the majority of supporters expect.

Lets hope Wane can do it and learn from 2012.

The point is, he put himself in that no-win situation by only giving Powell and Murphy a game each during the regular season. He had plenty of chances to give them a run (and give Sam and McIlorum some respite in the process), particularly as he regularly gave Tuson a bench spot for a 10 minute run at second row. He didn't use those chances and that's why neither could be deemed reliable cover when it came to big games with key players missing. I'm not saying this was the reason we didn't win anything but it was definitely a factor which could have been avoided at little cost

If your life depended on it, who would you pick to catch a Sinfield skyer with minutes to go in a semi final. I would trust my life with Pat or Wellens in that situation.

i think wane did a good job with very big boots to fill.

the selection incidents however dont bother me as much as the daft press quotes - thatd be my request for next year. not necessary. one or two are funny but at times it was most weeks and gave off the impression of arrogance which just leads to a fall.

i think wane will be finding the playing side a lot more difficult next year though due to player turnover

I donj't find Shaun Wane particularly likeable (a few comments in the press rubbed me up the wrong way), but it does seem early to talk about the sack for him. the margins in both semis were tight. I thought we (Leeds) were just about the better side in both, but in the CC semi you'd have to say some fortunate decisions went our way (for 'fortunate' read 'wrong'). I think we'd still have won, but I can't prove it and there certainly wasn't much in it.

Wane's still relatively inexperienced, but he's a young, British coach at a top club. We need more of those. He had a pretty good first season, and will probably have learned a couple of lessons. Particularly about the importance of having another gear to go to in the big matches.

To address something else, I don't believe for a minute that Leeds "deliberately" finished 5th again. I think the aim was always to have that aforementioned extra gear to go to, but I am certain that coach and players will have been unhappy with misjudging that to the degree that we did. It was then a (nother) monumental effort to recover. I hope, and think, we'll be better in the regular rounds next year. It's definitely still an easier road to Old Trafford from 1st or 2nd.

It's hard to set targets for Wane in terms of results. Wigan will want to win one of the two major trophies. Trouble is, so will Leeds, Wire and Saints. Plus Hull might be dark horses if the new signings work out. At least 2 of the "big 4" will go home empty handed (this isn't Blankety Blank after all).

Oh, and those suggesting that Nathan Brown could be first to go, that can only happen if nobody goes in the first half of the season. The first half is the good half for Mr Half-a-season, so he'll be alright until at least the end of July.