Yeah I think we’ll see Zak at centre pretty soon. He is probably right Lammy in that it’s best for the team. You don’t lose much, if anything at fullback (if French plays like last year), you get a more natural centre and a player in great form moving in to that 3 shirt, which then lets Isa or Faz move in to the back row.

One downside of Lams interview for me was him saying Smithies is a loose forward playing at second row as though he thinks he’s totally out of position. I think currently he plays out of position when he’s at loose forward. He played plenty of second row in the academy and his time will come in the middle. It doesn’t need to be now and shouldn’t be now at the minute.

Maybe I'll think differently about Shorrocks when I watch it back or see the stats, just noticed him getting driven back a lot and giving up set restarts/penalties.

We do need to find a way to make these hard yards, Leeds had plenty field position to win that game but lacked the guile to punish us.

Just liked his energy but there’s no doubt we’re short of one big man in the middle and he’s not that. I’m loving Smithies out wide and Shorrocks is another who probably should be eased in to it from the second row but he worked overtime tonight.

I’m sure when the big games come round we’ll see more lads step up. I don’t think Bateman has been anywhere near his best yet. I’d say the same for Powell as well but there’s no worries on those two. It’ll really help the side to get Isa and Faz back in the pack.

I know Leeds were missing a few but it has to be said our defence was outstanding.

Good to get a win but we still look second best around the middle. One day a teams will steamroller us up the middle and then be able to spread it effectively. If we are struggling to get out of our own 25 the best teams will be lining up for attacking practice.
I have been saying for a while that Smithies needs to run further out and he looks threatening but he has a long way to go to be as good as Faz. As for Bateman and Powell they are at their best when they are going forward off a dominant drive.

Leeds gave it everything yet lost four tries to one.
Our forwards had a difficult time first half in gaining ground but I think we miss backs who get us out of our own half with fast scoots and quick play the ball. I do feel though Bullock and Singleton should be starting props.
With probably French and Manfredi back next week then our attacking ability.
Defence is excellent and though mistakes and penalties are happening too often maybe with better attacking players out there pressure will be eased and those mistakes can be reduced.
A good win by the team and Lam sounded very happy indeed.

As much as he battered us at points in the middle, I’m happy to see Oledzki starting to fulfil his potential. He’s a huge bloke and played big minutes tonight. He’ll be good news for England on that form and if he does keep that up I’m sure NRL eyes will be on him in droves.

Probably a boring stat but Wigan have only conceded more than one try in one of their last eight competitive games.

The pattern of sleep walking in the first 20 minutes continues.

Lack of go forward continues and we’re getting murdered at ruck every week.

I’m unsure how Zak Hardaker is such a media darling given his past. He’s not in the same league as French or Tomkins (two players he’s competing with current). He’s always in the wrong position on the block play. His off the cuff is great but maybe not against the better teams.

Ultimately this game and the other 3 will never be remembered and the only thing we have to do is tick off wins.

Hastings and Farrell were class.

Sterner tests the next 3 weeks

Against the two worst teams in the competition and team missing 12 players
We will come short against better teams due to our lack of go forward.

As always a great defensive stint again tonight but our props are just not good enough and will get found out against Saints and possibly 3 or 4 teams with a better pack.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to watch the full game but from what I did see;

1/ There isn’t right going to be a selection headache when French is fit. Surely you couldn’t move Zak on this form?

2/ Can we give Faz a centres shirt yet?

3/ (broken record time) If we had more firepower in the pack we’d have put 50 past them.

Cracking result and cracking performance (from what I saw). Not sure why Clubb was picked as a starter but it’s irrelevant in reality, probably just me nit picking.

You'd think non stop defending in our own half for the first half hour of matches is eventually going to catch up with us.
Can't fault the commitment and fitness levels but I wish we could play in the oppositions half once in a while.

Definitely. No one seems to talk much about Powell, but he epitomises that with his fitness and workrate. Losing the territorial battle and relying on defence/fitness to see us through every week is a bloody hard way to make a living though. It's going to really take it out of us over a season (physically and mentally) if we are having to take 60 mins to grind teams down every week before we start to pull away. You can bet Saints will have many games won by half time this year and often be able to spend the latter stages playing at a lower intensity.

That's going to be helped a lot when we get our backs back, though.

I think there is a lot more on this side to be honest.

I’m pretty comfortable with where we are at the moment.

We have yet to click, we are winning and we are getting the basics right. The finer points need work but so far so good.

As much as there’s a clear issue with the prop position, we will see an upturn in performance getting away from our line when French, Manfredi and Gildart are back. The last two are very good at it (certainly an improvement on Hanley or the back version of Isa) and French will offer a huge threat, both making breaks and creating space for others as defences will be in two minds.

That’s not to say there isn’t an issue because there clearly is but it all has a knock on. Get backs in the back positions and Faz and Isa get in the second row and they make more ground than Smithies usually would (although he was great on that score tonight) and you put Bateman at loose and he’ll make more ground than Partington.

Gildart has had a setback which will delay his comeback by a few weeks.

We simply lack size and grunt in the forwards (and generally across the team) - add in our plodding line speed in defence and when we face a decent team we could get our backsides kicked.

It was SEVEN years ago that Radlinski said the squad was too small (in terms of physicality) and yet here we are.

Just seen Matthew Shaw on Facebook saying it happened it captains run yesterday. So it seemed like he was close to being back but the talk was it’ll be 2-3 weeks now.

On the plus side Manfredi should be available next week and French will be.

I think Bateman is a little off the pace at the moment.

He’s a wonderful player and World Class but he isn’t quite firing yet.

I’m sure he will but we but it’s not just quite happening yet.

Plodding line speed?!

You are not watching the same team I am.

Too many errors so far. I think he’s still getting to grips with being a target and it may be a lame excuse but not having a crowd in won’t suit him either. He thrives on the atmosphere of a big game.

Once the big games come round there’s no player I’d rather have in the side.

I'm not sure you can hold Radlinski to what he said when a different coach was in charge and (perhaps more importantly) we were playing to different rules. Six again, reduced interchanges and the removal of scrums may have impacted that. We do need to produce more hard yards but I can understand why we are generally preferring mobile forwards.

You've lost me on the criticism of our defence. 10 games in a row conceding 2 tries or less (and 8 in a row conceding 1 try or less), even whilst losing the territorial battle most weeks. In fact I think this is the best defensive Wigan side I've seen in the two decades I've been watching the game (watch us concede 50 next week now

)

Our defence has been a pain in the backside for the opposition in every game this season bar the first 30 minutes for Leigh. We’re flying at teams and defending aggressively and with great energy.

A battering ran through the middle would round our side off perfectly. I wouldn’t say no to Hardakers goal kicking improving either.

I didn't criticise our defence, I criticised our line speed which was shocking in the first half - hence why it took nearly 20 minutes before we actually had a set inside their 20 (off the back of another set of six). Leeds were rolling forward far too easily - it's a good job they had no halves to play off the back of it.

Yes it nice to have won our first four games but we've played the two teams people expect to finish in the bottom two (and Leigh ran all over the top of us for a large proportion of that game), a championship side in the cup and a Leeds team decimated by injuries. We probably couldn't have asked for a better set of fixtures.