Not sure theres much about but even if there is, I don’t think we can afford it. Fringe players off the books this year leaving us short of depth is one sign but then you look at the outs and rumoured ins for next year and it’s pretty startling. If it is the case, I’ve no issue with it, certainly not with Lenagan anyway. It’s his money and if he doesn’t want to pee it away, who can blame him.

I can’t understand why a left footed kicker (Smith) would try to kick a short drop out towards the left hand touch line.

I don't understand why Hankinson has never been recalled. A good centre who can kick goals.

I thought it was a money thing (assuming we were offloading to bring a new signing in).

Smith has plenty to work on but I’d love to see him behind a proper pack. He needs to steady down and be a bit more boring sometimes. I don’t blame him for the endless hoofed balls tonight down the fullbacks throat. That’s him, Hastings and Leuluai before that who have done nothing else under Lam. Smith needs to work hard on his defence for sure.

Generally I don’t. However those I do read into are those who are quite respected. Lam talked about last week how having to play players out of position hurt us. So what does he do? Play Marshall (a winger) at FB and Hanley (a FB) on the wing.

Bullock, our starting prop - whom I can predict his performance without even looking - plays 14mins. He then comes back on at 74mins.

Attack flat, predictable and one dimensional. Defence is said to have improved - clearly it has.

The team we had out was never going to trample Wakey, let’s make that clear. But it was still good enough and experienced enough to win.

Lam simply has to go.

When Smith put three grubbers in near the line we got two repeat sets. Hoofing it with no pressure has been our achilles heel for years now. Still don't understand why we don't play a few along the floor especially in this weather. This tactic got them the winning try when Bibby fecked up possession.

Agree we were better and you can’t say that the effort wasn’t there.
Wakefield also had a few regulars missing so difficult to say if we’d have won. We are playing like a bottom four team so difficult to assess if we’re are better than Wakey.

We don’t have a coach and we only have 4 props that the coach will play and no real attacking threat so difficult to see where the next win will come from unless Lam has some sort of epiphany or the players start to coach themselves as happened with Dorahy.

Highlights tonight over and above the effort was the performance of KPP, Harvard’s storming run and O.Neil.’s debut.
Smith was ok but is way off of being able to the lead team so for me a new HB next season is also a must. I hope though that he displaces TL going forward as unfortunately Tommy is either carrying an injury or maybe it’s one season too many. Smith is still smart prospect he just needs to stop listening to Lam and play his own game.

Personally I’ve written this season off which is fine as long as there some decent signings for next season.

I just hope that the next two games aren’t too embarrassing. If we get butchered which wouldn’t surprise me my worry is that this season could explode and we end up in the bottom half and even possibly in the bottom four.

I don't disagree, but there's certainly a section of the social media following who like to go OTT.

I read one comment that said we won't win a game again this season FFS.

I've not given up all hope in this side, but it's always going to be difficult with such an inept guy at the helm.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say, we won't win a game with *that* team. But hopefully we have Faz and JB and Hastings to come back. As NSW says, KPP, Shorrocks and Havard had a real dig.(can you imagine, by the way, An NRL prop making a break like Havard, and not having a half or hooker or full-back on his shoulder?), which only highlighted how poor our props were. But even of Wigan found an all-singing, all-dancing prop, it wouldn't solve out lack of creativity in attack. Hence the number of 'held-ups'. Does that show we were unlucky? it does not; it shows we have no other ideas in attack. We don't scare even ordinary SL defences. And, let's be right, things weren't *that* much better when Hastings was playing.

Couldn’t agree re our lack of creativity.
We must be one the lowest try scoring teams in competition and I think we are the only team to have played Leyth twice so far this season.

Our defence has dropped alarmingly over the last couple of months which compounds our attacking frailties.
I can’t see many more victories on the horizon and every match will be an arm wrestle at best.

I like Hastings but I can’t see him going left side with coach because with nrl next season why should he bust his balls this season to compensate for an awful coach.

Oh I agree fully with that. The responses to the clubs tweet with Lam’s reaction make some on here - including my own - look almost celebratory. I’m sure I read one that said we’d be relegated



On the hope side nor have I but as you’ve said, it’s difficult with the ineptitude of our coach at the helm.

Agreed. With a depleted squad all he had to do was pick what he had in their correct positions and say give it a go!

As mentioned on Mikes board by someone else what made Lam think Hanley was a better winger than Marshall and Marshall a better full back than Hanley?

Presumably Hanley possesses the skills and attributes of a full modern back or why is he first choice in the academy? He never looks comfortable on the wing and was caught out tonight. Marshall never passed and so is clearly not a full back. Baffling.

The substitutions were crazy such as doing the same as last week and bringing a prop on for five minutes at the end.

Last week at least Hastings being a half back wasn’t a completely outlandish choice as a full back but by half time when it clearly wasn’t working he did not nothing to change it about.

I think we could and probably should have been able to win both games despite the depleted squads and if Lam was a decent coach I think we may well have. The trouble is I don’t think he has a clue.

I agree. Wigan have scored 172 points this season. Leigh have scored 194.

I've just watched brief 'highlights' (?) of the game. Wakefields tries ......not one Wigan player laid a hand on them ! Dear God.

I stopped listening just before half time and watched a few youtube videos on making curries instead

If that's the case then IL needs to sell up. That sounds harsh, but this club deserves to be at the cutting edge of the game. Not winning a trophy a year just isn't good enough for Wigan. Losing to Catalan > Hull KR > Wakey on the bounce is absolutely scandalous. I don't even know how to categorise Wigan lads turning the club down for a "new challenge" and going to Wire.

If that doesn't trigger big changes, or set a fire under the owner, then that's a solid sign to walk away. We talk about players losing the 'fight/fire" and it happens to every good administrator too. There's no shame in it. He's what 75? That's only 5 years younger than Mo who many (myself included) would class as too old to run a club.

I feel like I'm using the phrase "I'm a big IL fan" before a lot of my posts. I still am btw, but to me that's an indication that things aren't going smoothly. Let's not sugar coat it - the last 3 - 4 years haven't been the best under his stewardship.

I still can't get over how Trinity conspired to only score twice! I thought your lads gave it a good shot but if we had played anything as we did against Hudds we would have got a hat full. I know we were a fair few players light ourselves but with the amount of ball and territory we had, combined with your error rate, any other team would have had a field day.

I suppose that makes us both unhappy bunnies but at least we got the points, just not as easy as we should have.

I got the impression that Lam wasn't too happy with Oliver Gildart in his post match interview. Mentioned that he pulled out in the morning and that he was proud of James McConnell for playing through his injury to help the team out. The way he said it made me think that all might not be well there.

Hard to criticise Gildart as he's been superb for us over his career but he does seem to have gone all "Ben Barba" on us this season.

Agree. Can't blame hin though. Will just be wanting to arrive healthy in NRL now. This season already become a farce and non-event......

Well about 15 of us on our rugby WhatsApp group knew he wasn't playing Wednesday morning
So if Lam is giving that impression then he must be suffering from memory loss as well as being a liar.

It is what he said and he did seem miffed with Gildart from what I saw. Everything between Lam and the players feels weird at the minute.

I know w its what he said
He may be miffed, he may not be happy for whatever reason or he may be using the current fad of distraction technique to place fault somewhere else etc.

Either way, if I/we knew he wasn't playing dinner time ish Wednesday then so did Lam.

Hence my assertion that he did know before Thursday morning and it wasn't the complete shock he was making it out to be

I was suggesting that Lam was annoyed that Gildart pulled out at all, irrespective of when it happened.

Not questioning the fact you knew he wasn’t playing but just clarifying that is what Lam said. He is clearly not telling the truth and your comment about him deflecting blame feels spot on. He is sinking at the minute and looks totally out of his depth. In truth, he’s looked that way since he started. I’d love to know the players honest opinions on him as a coach, I could be wrong but I get the feeling they wouldn’t be very positive.