Massively this and im a bulls fan!

Everything has a shelf life and i think Wane's is up and so is the conditioning coaches and fitness coaches. Wholesale changes are needed for me. Worryingly the stats show we are getting worse in near enough every aspect of the game. This label of world champions has been a go to excuse as well " but we're world champions ".

It's a bit daft playing down the significance of being World Champions. Only Wigan fans could do that. Just one side from Super League gets a crack at it and it's rare that we beat the Aussies nowadays. Now we are using it as a stick to beat the coach with. Amazing!

Wane has not done well this season as I'm sure he knows only too well. But I've NEVER heard him use the excuse of "we're world champions". If he has please provide a link and I'll happily apologise.

"PCollinson" is a poster on the Hull boards who's been banned a couple of times and returns in various guises. He gets shown up time & time again with his lack of knowledge about the game, and this bile is his usual sort of stuff. Don't rise to the bait.

I think someone said he was quoted as saying something like "at the beginning of the season if you'd have told me we would win the WCC and appeared in the CC Final I would have taken it".

I've not seen this quote anywhere but assume this is where the "it's okay we are world club champions" has originated from.

I am curious did he actually say this?

It does seem unlikely doesn't it? At the beginning of every season he wants to win the lot. I doubt that will change.

The full interface is on Wigan TV and he said it more than one.

Winning the WCC was great but if it is being used as a stick to beat him up with, it is because it was 7 months ago and what came after was rubbish. He was given leeway when there were injuries but even then the writing was on the wall as we managed to snatch defeats or draws from the jaws of victory. We won the WCC and the wheels came off. It's a paradox so it's not surprising it is mentioned.

I wonder though if we had gone on to win either the CC or GF if the WCC would get mentioned at all other than as in "..and we won the WCC as well". Would it be seen as the clubs crowning glory this season ahead of either domestic competition? I have my doubts.

I still don't know how seriously the WCC is taken in Australia.

Okay, they specialise in making excuses whenever they lose, but I doubt any of them ever come over intending not to try.

But let's be honest, it's not really a fair assessment of where the participating teams actually stand.

The early season factor is massive. Neither side is fit, neither is really in the swing of it. It doesn't surprise me that British teams have won many more of these fixtures than they have Test matches, because it's much more of a lottery.

It shouldn't be underestimated, of course. It IS silverware, and it IS to Shaun Wane's credit that he won one for us in 2017. But that first month of the season was so different from everything that followed that it now feels like a lifetime ago. I wonder what chance we'd have stood if we'd played that game in August.

I think the early season factor and them having to fly round the world is easily offset by the difference in the level of player NRL clubs can attract these days given the difference in the salary cap, origin/test selection opportunities etc. It probably doesn't really show that we are better than Cronulla, but does show that we are (well, were) ahead of other SL teams given that SL teams have won only 2 of the last 10 games.

I would never try to deny the honour that victory brought to the club. Any victory over an top Aussie team has to be a good one. But as Dave O said - and most people know that Dave and I don't always see eye to eye - what happened afterwards put a different perspective on things. Wigan were so hopeless in 2017 that you can't help but wonder what was going on that day we beat Cronulla.

I'm prepared to accept the argument that we were simply brilliant ... but even so, playing like that once in a season is nowhere near enough.

The wheels didn't come off following the WCC match as we were looking like a pretty good, threatening team when we played Wire in March. A dodgy draw v Hudds and a narrow loss to Hull in the following weeks were arguably the start of our decline this season.

The dodgey draw was a decent result all things considered. We lost Lockers and Sutton within the 1st 8 minutes and we already had a few missing.

In fairness to Wane with that comment, there was a thread on here before the Cronulla game asking if winning that and nothing else would be deemed a success and a good few said yet.

As I said at the time, this side has too many quality players in it to be happy that just that win. It's been a poor season but as I've posted a few times, it's a sign of the club bs standing and ambition when you feel a poor season is becoming world champions, appearing in a cup final and winning your 8th academy title in 10 years.

If SW's future was to be decided by the video ref it would be a try on the field (winning the WCC) and inconclusive evidence to overrule the on field decision, and that's after watching the replays for about 15 minutes....

If you want to swap you can have the five Leigh coaches and we'll take Wane off your hands. Deal ?

Yeah I wasn't feeling too down about that one, Huddersfield have always been a tough team for us. It was Cas away in April when the wheels really came off for me. We had the opportunity to go top with a win, and 54-4 against the below side was shocking:

22. Morgan Escaré, 36. Tom Davies, 3. Anthony Gelling, 5. Joe Burgess, 35. Liam Marshall, 6. George Williams, 16. Sam Powell, 8. Frank-Paul Nuuausala, 9. Michael Mcilorum, 10. Ben Flower, 11. Joel Tomkins, 12. Liam Farrell, 13. Sean O’Loughlin

Interchange: 17. Taulima Tautai, 19. Ryan Sutton, 20. Willie Isa, 33. Josh Ganson

Results like that have been the worst aspect of 2017 for me. Because, while Castleford are undoubtedly good, teams like Saints have shown that you can push them all the way if you get stuck into them. On occasions like that we simply didn't, we just lay down and died.

Not the Wigan way, and there should be consequences for all those involved.

Oddly, the games since our season effectively ended have put a different perspective on our season for me. I had been telling myself that we are really the fourth best team, behind Cas, Leeds and Hull, and that injuries had cost us the 4th spot. After all, we beat Saints in 2 out of our 3 games against them and should have won the other one, but I think either of those teams would have stuck 40 past us last night, and Wakefield demolished us last week, and beat us 2 out of 3 games during the season. Maybe 6th is an accurate position of where we have fallen to.

Stick on the fact that Wire were inexplicably awful for most of the season then escaping the middle 8's was in hindsight a good result, we could easily be in a terrible spot right now.

Yeah I suppose Leeds and Wire have shown that you can easily get dragged down there, but as disappointing as the season has been, I do think we were better than Salford, Huddersfield etc, and would have been a class above the rest in the middle 8s with the side we had available (except maybe Wire). Disappointing that we are talking this way after our reserves managed to win the Grand Final last year! I expected a big year from Cas (not this big!) but thought we would have the Grand Final sewn up and maybe the treble this year to be honest having swapped Smith for Leuluai, and was even more confident after we won the WCC.

We seem to have developed a mental block when it comes to Castleford, same as Leeds. Hoping for a Hull win tonight or the GF will be over after 10 mins.

I was never Treble confident, but with adding what appeared to be a fully fit Joe Burgess & Tommy Leuluai with the addition of a fully rehab'd Sam Tomkins I genuinely believed we would be alot better that the year previous. We just capitulated and it cannot simply be put down to injuries.

Long winded, but stick with me...

I've looked back over the season..we died off round 6, 7 and 8....losing to Hull (20-22) at home, Leeds away week after (26-1icon_cool.gif the Cas beat us at home (10-27). After that we became very, very poor...we only beat a poor Saints in round 9 (29-1icon_cool.gif because they went down to 12, no denying they were up for that game and it would of been alot closer had Amor stayed on...scraped past Wakey next (10-16) in a Easter Monday snooze-fest that neither side performed in...and only finally beat a resilient Catalans (42-22) after giving away 20 points and going in losing at half time....then the 8 game winless streak which doesn't need addressing as I am sure injuries and morale we difficult to manage, however, a few of these games could of been won had we held out and done the basics right....two turgid wins and a shockingly bad loss to a poor Warrington at home. We then beat a weak (generous) Leeds to make the super 8s...a score settled in the first week of the Super 8s when they schooled us (32-16) with a full compliment. One stand out performances away at Saints and then lucky at Hull, if they had stayed at full capacity, we would of lost and I say that because as proven when an 80% fit Cas turned up at the DW they exposed us to all but end our season.

No one can say we are not loyal as fans, because I have read many a post on here from fans actually trying to be positives, as a set of fans we were given 1/4's worth of a season, the rest was poor by any clubs standard and the underlying problem is we only avoided been fully exposed this year because for whatever reason Warrington and Huddersfield had equally as bad seasons.

With Toronto, Toulouse and potentially Catalans/Leigh all vying to come up next year, the Qualifiers in 2018 will be electric...I for one bloody hope we are not involved but if Huddersfield & Warrington improve which is likely, especially the latter with a new coach and Salford & Wakey recruit well we will really, really struggle.

I think what's interesting about this is that people have stopped talking about the injuries as if that was a kind of catch-all explanation for Wigan's worst season since Brian Noble.

Sure, we had injuries and they disrupted the middle part of the campaign, but most people posting on here now are being very, very honest about the fact that we've continued to be just as terrible even with a full complement of players. In fact, it's almost as if we've realised that this is really quite serious and that hiding behind excuses will do more damage than good.

Yeah it's hard to make excuses anymore when we've still been pretty dire with a very strong (on paper) team out since June. However we would've 100 per cent be in the semis if it wasn't for injuries. There's no chance we go 8 games without a win with a fitter squad.