The jury was out about Lam being the coach at the start of the season whats your thoughts now?

Let's see how he gets on in the play offs. Making them should have been a given really IMO.

I’d give him a 6/10 up until now. We started very poor and didn’t look like we had a chance of play offs nevermind 2nd, however winning 10 out of the last 11 has massively helped. We’ve played some good rugby in them games, but we’re still inconsistent week to week in performances and our attack looks worse than last year.

I backed Lam from the start and backed him even when we were at our lowest points. I said I’d seen enough quality in the rugby we were playing to believe he’d turn us around and he has. We attack to both flanks instead of just to the left and seeing Williams creating tries on the right is good to see. We also go from one side to the other in 3 passes and defences have been caught out when we do. We can’t ignore the start that we had but I accept the mitigation. A new coach with new ideas, only in for one season. A squad decimated by injuries to key players and more off field issues than most coaches have to cope with in their entire career!
Matty Peet coming back has helped defensively and the signings for next year have brought a great positive energy to the club.
I’m glad I backed Lam and kept the faith, as tough as I was at times!

+1

+ Another...

I think people forget just what a mess AL inherited. It was touted as a transitional season, key players left, injuries, and the Edwards debacle meant that no one really knew where they stood. This would have had a massive ripple effect through the club...

To mark AL down is, in my opinion, rather churlish. Bravo AL, all power to your elbow sir, take not notice of the usual whiners..

Still not fully convinced.
I don't know why people are saying AL inherited a mess, he didn't, he inherited a championship winning side with 3 key players departing who were all replaced with quality. are the departures better than the arrivals debatable, without a doubt Bateman is a loss, but teams loss quality consistently at the end of each season; difference is Lam inherited a team capable of winning the GF.

I don't see how the Edwards situation was of any impact apart from paper talk and the embarrassment the club faced a coaching U turn. I could never cite that alone as a reason for such poor play.

Throughout this season we've been very inconsistent. We were sloppy and losing early on, now we're still sloppy yet finding enough to beat poorer teams. I still think we've only had 1 complete performance over 80 mins this season, even the win v Wire a few weeks back showed a second half were our team made less meters, conceded more pens, had less percentage of the play and were out-scored.

Take the weekend just gone... that wasn't a strong performance at all. Was penalty filled opening in a back and forth game without either team looking impressive. Some good some great individual moments (Marshall for example) but hardly a great team performance.

But... we are winning. We're second in the table. We're looking stronger in D and we still have key players missing. We're in a very good position to really make a good run at the GF, and hopefully really make a mark and defend our title with real fight.

6 out of 10 so far for the season over all.

I also will say this, for those out there who regularly watch the NRL will understand how poor the standards in SL have gotten. I don't think it's Saints who are a particularly outstanding RL team, I think the overall standard of RL is very low.
NRL looks way faster, the players look fitter, run harder, ball movement is slick and precise, over here there's a lot of players who simply aren't good enough.

I've really enjoyed the way he coaches the team at Wigan i don't know about anyone else but i never wanted Edwards and lam should have been given a longer contract than the 1 year he has been given

It’s extremely debatable to say our three key players were replaced with quality players. It’s fair enough comparing the talents of Tomkins and Hardaker but Sutton for Bullock has proved to be a step down (that’s not a criticism of Bullocks who’s raw and has loads of improvement in him) and we didn’t replace Bateman really, with Greenwood coming in for Joel Tomkins.

I still think Lam has got things to prove and he’ll have no excuses next season for not achieving success but you can’t do anything but admire this turnaround.

Seems like he is fulfilling his remit then

I mentioned Bateman...he's class, we didn't replace him with the same standard, don't think we ever could really. But at the time of the signings we brought in Hardaker, former MOS and quality for Sam, Greenwood, played for Saints and has NRL experience at a very young age, at the time of the signing it couldn't be disputed that Greenwood was a quality signing. Greenwood was always going to be Bateman's replacement. If you remember initially he was going to be coming in for this season to replace Bateman, not Joel. Joel originally wasn't set to go anywhere until his drunken rant at a barmaid in St Andish. This freed up space to allow Joe to arrive earlier.

Nevertheless clubs lose talent all the time, did Leeds really replace Sinfield and Peacock with equal talent? No. It can't always happen, it's part of team sport.

Nothing like a bit of 'paraphrasing'


But like I said, we are second and we are winning... facts are facts.

Agree with virtually all of that.

From the low of Barcelona we have improved and for that I'm very grateful but we are still way short of being a very good team.

The present squad struggles to make good yards on a consistent basis and when we eventually play Saints in the playoffs this will come home to bite.

Next season will be very interesting and if Lam can improve our 6th tackle options and our kicking game then we may see how good Lam actually is.

I for one didn't expect too much this season so making the playoffs is a genuine bonus for me after our awful start.

I’ve been fairly pragmatic about the whole situation and was willing to cut them some slack, accepting that this was always going to be a transitional season. We’ve had plenty of success lately, so I think they have earned the right to swerve a little criticism. My concerns have always been more about the off-field issues than onfield.

Having said that, we have somehow managed to battle ourselves into a great position to defend our title and it doesn’t matter if some of the wins have been ugly. They have found a way and next season is looking up too.

Said it many times, if we get to that GF - assuming we play Saints there - they will absolutely sh.it themselves against us. Lam 7/10 if we finish 2nd in the table and mayor of Wigan if he wins the title

Wouldn't you consider Leeds as a good example of what a detrimental effect losing players can have, rather than showing it should be business as usual? Had they remained successful I would agree with the point but surely this particular example doesn't support your point, unless I'm missing something of course?

You make a fair point. However I feel the void between the players Leeds lost to who they brought in was way bigger. Sinfield was the brains of the team, at times it's well documented how took team talks at the discrepancy of McDermott. He was their leader.
Peacock was the heart and guts of the team, drove them forward with his own brand of leadership, add Kylie into the mix and they lost a lot of their identity.

If we'd have lost say... Lockers, Sam and Flower then it would have been a fair comparison.

I'm not completely slamming Lam, not at all. We're second, we're winning games and I feel there's level of optimism around the club which is most welcomed by all.
I'm considering all aspects of his performance as head coach in 2019 so far.

Still a good chance to be in and win the GF this season. If this happens... I'll up my score to 10/10 with a big smile on my face

Agree that the legacy left to Lam was probably not as severe as some might have made out - at least in terms of the squad. Something that Lam deserves big credit for is the way in which he's found a way to get us competitive using a (weakened) Wane team whilst trying to move away from Wane's brand of Rugby.

I was nervous about anyone replacing Wane, who had his fingerprints on almost every aspect of the club. A less canny coach may have gone too quickly in changing styles and run the risk of losing the good aspects of how we play whilst at the same time not having the players able to win whilst playing scintillating attacking rugby.

He definitely hasn't been continuity Wane, but he's been pragmatic and he's found a way to win with various selection issues thrown his way which any coach would've struggled with. I'm much happier having him in post than I was at the start of this season, so I suppose that's probably the best endorsement I can give him. 7.5-8/10 for me, full marks is we can win at Old Trafford!

Sport goes in cycles. I remember the great Wigan side of the 1960's and then Boston, Ashton and McTigue retired, irreplaceable.
Look at Widnes when they lost Davies, Offiah, Devereux, Gregory, Tait etc
Then Saints when Long, Cunningham, Sculthorpe etc retired/left.
Leeds lost Sinfield, Peacock, Leuluai, Burrow etc.
It's very hard to replace class players.
Wigan have been very good at bringing young players through, the best academy system in rugby league. However I don't think outside recruitment has been as good as it should, oh for another "find" like George Carmont.

Serious question - have you really moved away from Wane's "brand of rugby".

I see very little difference in approach at all, but clearly don't see you play anything like as much as those on this forum.

Bits and pieces. Williams isn't limited just to the left hand side now. Powell has been running more from Dummy half. It's been pretty gradual through necessity if we're being honest. The squad is in the main still Wane's, only weaker, so I'd expect to see a bigger difference next season. There is a difference though.

Aside from the Edwards nonsense & the loss of some key players, I [ido[/i think he was out of his depth at the start and had severely underestimated the game before arriving. That said, rumours of discontent in the locker room in the first half of the season can't be brushed under the carpet & something was going on up to the end of April into May that was causing (at least in part) the shambolic run of form.
I suspect it's in no small part down to the guarantee of stability that things have settled down & we now seem to be working together as a squad; and I certainly didn't think we would be 2nd with two games to go that we [ishould[/i win (at least on paper), especially with home advantage.
Am I totally convinced he's the long-term future? No. But I'm happier than I was 5 months ago.

For sure and I think what has happened at Leeds since is testament to that. Wigan's losses were far less severe but they were still losses (and a major one in Bateman who is showing himself to be genuine World class) and we're currently in second after a run of 10 wins in 11 games. That's got to count for something, especially given it's also been a season of upheaval, injury and player indiscipline resulting in the further loss of two front row forwards.

My take on it is it could have been far worse. The early form was 'Leeds like' in how dramatic a fall off it was but, unlike Leeds, Lam has been able to turn it around, something a multi title winning coach and an NRL import of similar standing to Lam were unable to do. I think it's fair to say we retained better personnel than Leeds, as you rightly point out, but injuries throughout the season have negated that to some extent. We've been without O'Loughlin, Farrell, Flower, Greenwood and Bullock for large parts of the season, lost Tautai and Hamlin completely and had Manfredi and Davies suffer season ending injuries.

Personally I think that all those losses when combined with the total non replacement of Bateman (or Tomkins) more than covers the loss of Sinfield, Peacock and Leuluai. Just my opinion though, of course.

I think Lam should be marked quite well for turning it around this season but should be judged on next when he'll be working with 'his' team.

Whilst not being a quantum leap (we are working with much the same personnel after all) there has definitely been some tweaks and changes that make us a better team to watch when it clicks. Think Catalans at home, Hull KR on Easter Monday or the first halves vs Castleford away or, to a lesser extent, Warrington at home a couple of weeks ago.

We are getting the ball wider more quickly and Williams has a more roving brief, although I personally feel we will only see the full effect of this particular change next year when Hastings comes in as this is far more his style than George's, who tends to be more left side dominant.

We are slowly regaining the steel and aggression in defence that we lost, to some extent, early season. Certainly few fans would want change in that area so it's good to see we still have that in spades.

Not the finished article yet but, with the addition of O'Loughlin and Flower in a couple of weeks and hopefully Bullock shortly after that, I think we'll be a few steps closer to it.

I think that bullock is out for the season. If he is available then it will be right at trend of the season therefore, lam will be reluctant to use him due to lack of game time.

The main reason I think we won't win the gf is that we don't have enough in attack to beat saints particularly down the middle. Another injured prop and we are up shoite creek without a paddle.
I'm just enjoying the ride up the table and listening to the squeaky bums over the hump.

I heard back mid playoffs but I get what you're saying about game time. However his availability will at least go some way to negating your point regarding another injury to a prop, so fingers crossed. Just one other point worth mentioning here; I reckon Saints are just another injury to a prop from completely self imploding. Take Walmsley or Thompson out of their front row and they're a busted flush. In that scenario I'd take us to win all day long.

This season has been a strange one but here we are, 2nd in the league and most people's tip to make the GF. Who'd have thought it? Like you say, I'm just enjoying the ride!