The squad should definitely be stronger. In my mind we’ve lost Hastings and a quarter fit Oliver Gildart. The other exits may as well have not been here last season.

We lose those guys from the squad but gain Thornley, Miski, Cust, Ellis, Mago, Silva and I’d also include Field and (hopefully) French. We also have the younger lads with another year under their belts, so it’s without any question stronger.

Progression is all in after. Improvement on both league and cup positions on last year, even if it’s by one position/round. If we win something it’d be obviously brilliant but I don’t expect to see either final to be honest - Saints, Catalans, Leeds, Warrington all looking strong. Don’t get me wrong out squad looks strong too but there’s a few uncertainties for me, who’s going in the halves, FB, centre, will our props actually be effective, is Powell still up to it, is Matty Peet and co up to it?

I’m hoping all those questions and concerns are answered and negated within the first month of the season but the jury remains firmly out for me.

Realistic hopes/expectations for me 3rd to 4th, more entertainment, more variety and innovation in our attack and more competitive games against the top sides. I think the problem Peet faces is there will always be a section of the Wigan fanbase who won't have realistic expectations - for them it will always be a case of win a trophy = success, win nothing = failure. I don't think that's a fair way of looking at things, particularly as the squad on paper does not look to match up with St Helens and Catalans (despite the improvements made). I'm sure the coaching team will move us in the right direction but they can't work miracles.

The reality is if I were to pick a combined Wigan/Saints side today there would be a maximum of 3 Wigan players in it (French, Farrell and Bateman) and that would be pushing it considering French has barely played for us over the last year and Bateman's form was poor in 2021. I think the point at which we know we're truly back competing for titles is when we can reasonably say we would pick more players in such a combined team. Whether any of the new signings would get in there we will only be able to assess when we see them play. Then you have to assess if any of our younger players have enough untapped potential within them that they could conceivably compete for a place in the (fictional) team. Havard and KPP would have to be contenders for that and I also think Byrne and Smithies have a lot more in them. Less convinced in Partington, Shorrocks, Halsall and Hanley. Outside of that we can only look to further recruitment and higher quality academy products down the road to bridge the gap.

I’m quite optimistic about the season ahead. I’m really looking forward to seeing the new players in action and I think a fit Jai Field will be a serious strike weapon for us.

In my opinion we have a better squad this year than last season…the only loss I was bothered about was Hastings, and I feel like we’ve got a very good replacement in Cust.

We finished 4th last season playing with a pack getting totally bullied every week, a team with absolutely zero creativity , players playing out of position due to a long injury list and so on… so surely we should realistically be looking for top three and having a good crack at trophies this year?

I’d be mightily surprised if it isn’t between Saints and Cats this season. It also wouldn’t surprise me if Wigan push them closer than my boys (wire) as we’ve got a new coach to bed in and a squad seriously short of decent props sadly. Joe Bullock is being touted as the saviour, that’s how bad it is!

Top four at least.

I think we are in the mix as usual. Wigan or Saints this year.

I'd just like to see a brand of rugby that makes me want to go and watch live games again as it's a 4 hour round trip for me and that simply hasn't been appealing the last 2 seasons.

The messages from the club are very positive and During the off season that's what you'd expect anyway.

Early on we had an interview from Waney and spoke about the need to clear our yardage. That was one of our main problems last year. With pressure on us and a good kick we were often coming off our own line and ending nowhere near the 30. That is where our game seem to fall apart and then matters got only worse. Having a dh when 2 yards off your own line is nonsense but that's what Lam wanted it seems.

We now have a bigger and more mobile front row, that will make a difference. Surely Bateman and Farrell will have a better season that could make a massive difference. If Field is at fb with Cust at 6 then that is pace in the middle which has the potential to be devastating. Last season we had no structure, creativity or go forward. None of those problems from last year should occur this time around.

I think we'll have a good season and certainly end up top four if not higher. We will have as good a chance of the C Cup as anyone as so much depends on the draw.

Wanting to come off the ground thinking "I can't wait for the next game" rather than "Do I have to watch that dross again next week"

Id be happy with a CC final appearance

Wouldn’t we all

To begin with I just want to see a team that actually looks like they know how to, and enjoy playing rugby. Last year was awful, I've not ever seen rugby so bland in my life.

I'm hoping for some good things from Field and Cust on the way of attacking threat, I hope Miski doesn't have to wait long for his chance as I can see him being a fan favourite. We all hope that Ellis and Mago actually play like props should, something we haven't had in many years.

I'd go with the general feeling on here, in that we'd hope to improve our on field performance. One area I feel we need to massively improve and think smarter is our field kicking, whether it be from our own half way line to turn the opposition around and enforcing great 'Waney style defence' to pin them in their own forty (like so many teams did to us last season).

Fifth and last needs a massive overhall, too many times we simply didn't put enough pressure on our opponents by just gifting them the final ball. Very rarely we scored a try, most of the time never looked like scoring on the last as the set moves were too slow with inaccurate passes thrown in.

I'd like to think we now have someone who will take control of this by either feeding the pass to score or putting in a grubber over the try line and forcing an error leading to either a try or a drop out. At worst we pin the opposition on their try line. Possession and territory is everything in this game.

Wigan with a couple of props added, French / Field / Cust available and the clown of a coach gone willl be a much, much stronger side than last year, even without Hastings (who to be honest I thought was pretty average for Wigan but the whole side weas so poor it's hard to know whether that was his fault).

Don't think it will be enough to win anything but certainly expect lots of improvement.

I don't think that we have had a kicking game since Paul Deacon retired which is the best part of a decade.
If Tommy plays with regularity at best we will have half a kicking game and that assumes that Cust can actually kick.
It's part of the game that a player with average skills can actually improve pretty easily with practice and more practice.

Last year was as bad a team as I've ever seen wear our jersey.
From a personal point of view I don't think we have played any decent entertaining rugby since 2013 with any sort of regularity.

I hope we will improve but with so many changes on and off the field I think that it is difficult predict how we will actually play.
We have a difficult start and I think that after the first two games we will know how the season will pan out.

The player that I'm looking forward to watching is Farrell. He has been starved of decent ball for seasons and I'm hoping that Cust and Smith will give him some gaps and time to enable him to make some inroads with his great running game.

Big loss in Hastings, by far and away our best player last season. Hopefully Cust goes some way to replace him, don’t hold out much hope for Field, looks lightweight, lacking in confidence but bags of potential and lightning pace.
Hopefully we get a season out of French.
Gildart of old was a loss, but was a shadow of his former self last year, so in reality the loss of him was the season before last.
Looking forward to Bateman being somewhere near his Aussie form.
I think the one to watch is Ethan Havard, has the potential to be a real monster in SL, hopefully Waney brings that out of him.
I do hope the league becomes more competitive, I think Stains have lost a couple and the quality of replacements remains to be seen. They seem to have been relatively lucky with injuries in recent years and although they’ve won 3 in a row, but 2 of the 3 were by the narrowest of margins…..

One man's lucky with injuries is another man's strong squad, sensible approach to blooding of youngsters, highly professional players and conditioning team.

From what I’ve heard very few if any people within the club will miss Hastings.
A talented player but not always a team player.

It’s a combination of all of them IMO. There has to be more than luck to it but nobody can deny Saints have had some very good fortune with injury and illness these past few seasons (apart from the really bad luck of having some Covid cases for that spell just after the cup final).

You make your own luck as they say though. Clearly the conditioning team at Saints are doing a very good job, you only need to look at the shape Konrad Hurrell is in to see that.

Blooding youngsters is easy when you have a fully fit side and there is no pressure on them. Playing them when you're missing 7 or 8 and they need to take the lead isn't as easy.

I've said it before and will say it again.....Saints have played a weak team 3 times in the last 3 years and lost every time. Take 7 or 8 out their side for a long period and the change in results will be as dramatic as ours has been.

just take Walmsley out and they look very beatable...

Like in 2018 when he broke his neck and we finished top of the league and arguably should have won it if not for limit capacity for choking in big games under Holbrook? (Something people often forget in saying Woolf Saints look weaker than Holbrook Saints?)

Walmsley gets the flashy runs no doubt, but as others have said, it has always been built on previous momentum built by Makinson, Grace, Naiqama and Percival, who invariably make good yards and momentum flying into tackles 1 and 2.

Walsmley is very often the cherry on top rather than the whole pie. That’s not to say he isn’t an important player to us, but it doesn’t necessarily change us missing him.

Since I’m here, it’s also a mistake to suggest we were particularly lucky with injuries over the course of 2021. It’s something that’s banded about quite a bit but conveniently overlooks us missing Fages and Bentley to season ending injuries, and us having injuries to almost all of our important players throughout the year at one point or another. Welsby was our top attender last year playing in a multitude of positions to cover various injuries in the backs at any given time. It’s because he has really progressed, along with the likes of Dodd and Batchelor that it feels like we’re full strength so often.

Saints recruitment next year is also made us a bit deeper. Lussick backs up Roby, Bell backs up Knowles which were two pain points for us last year when they were injured. We don’t have Welsby covering the backline any more but Josh Simm is the forgotten man of Saints and Hurrell is a wildcard in cover. We have Norman whose supposed to be the next best thing at prop (at least according to the fans calling for him to get game time over Amor and LMS) and who knows where Sironen comes in since Mata’utia and Batchelor will be our starting back towers. And we have a plethora of experienced kids now (Wingfield, Foster and Davies have SL experience from last year either in our team or on duel ref/ loan with Leigh and Salford).

How is this a Saints thread all of a sudden?

We know they are a great team and still the team to beat