It’s all Wigan’s fault!

[urlhttps://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jan/24/shaun-edwards-france-six-nations-wigan[/url

He seems to think he is God,going on about how he wasn't allowed to run the club how he wanted to he would have been an employee for gods sake and as for the Williams leaving that was probably set in place before he agreed to take the Wigan job,talk about burning bridges

Another lesson in how to be 'the man most lacking in self-awareness on Planet Earth'.

You would expect a coach to be able to bring his own staff and players in unless agreed otherwise.

It does sound like it could have been managed better, but I'm not convinced it would have worked out anyway given the time he's been out of rugby league

It's certainly a new excuse. Previously it was just 'Wigan won't give me a contract'.

He’s so boring,,,, move on.

It’s still pre season, we need something to talk about until Thursday

It's a rumour that was banded about at the time along with the tax fiddle one. Depends who you want to believe I suppose.

No need for him or the club to drag this up just as the season is about to begin, it serves no purpose at all. Pretty poor form

Six of one and half a dozen of the other as far as I am concerned.

Slightly edited

The club part was just incase they repsond. I know they haven't brought it up to begin with.

There's probably a middle ground tho this, but I can see why SE would be annoyed at not being told about the sale of GW & not being able to bring in his own team.

Both of those seen pretty standard things imo.

I guess it depends on how many current employees (and which ones) would have needed to be sacked in order for him to assemble his own team.

And if he truly didn't know about the sale of GW? I think a lot of people could have told him he was going end of 2019 at the end of 2018
I mean he would also have been pleasantly surprised by the additions of Jackson Hastings/George Burgess etc, but he didn't come did he so irrelevant (Just like his statement IMO)

Also - Did he get it agreed that he could bring in his own Backroom staff when he agreed His contract?
If not then that was silly
If he did then maybe he should have got it agreed in his signed contract instead of relying on a Gentleman's agreement???

Whilst it probably isn't the done thing, coaches in other sports bring in their own backroom staff with them. Imo if Edwards wanted that then I'd say we should have gone for it.

I'd question if it makes more sense to have all the coaches signed up to similar deals i.e everyone on 2 year deals etc.

Really? You wouldn't have expected the club to tell, what was the next head coach, that one of his star players was leaving? Anyone could have told him, but the club apparently chose not too - would you not be annoyed at that?

I'm playing devils advocate here, as I'm sure it's not as black and white as SE makes out, BUT knowing Edwards and how he is - he'd have been looking at the squad and how he'd like to play. It would kinda help if he got an official update from the club something as big as GW leaving.

Why do we have yet another 'off the field' distraction in the week leading up to the season opener?

Last year it was the 2 points deduction the evening before we played Saints which cast a shadow over the game.

If he didn't know George Williams wanted a crack at the NRL then it just shows how out of touch with RL he is.
Nice bit of publicity for the Six Nations though, not that I'm cynical or anything.

He was taking over 18months after he "Agreed" to join
How do you know they didn't tell him?
How do you know that the negotiations to sell GW only started AFTER he decided he wasn't coming?

And he backed out some 10/11months before he was due to take over, How do we know the discussions with the Fitness coach he wanted hadn't begun, How do we know he asked for or was promised this when he agreed to take over?
I ask it again, was it in his contract that we would employ this other guy? Strange as he didn't have one?
How do we know if the existing Wigan RL Fitness guy didn't already have a contract beyond the start of Edwards Tenure making employing someone else a little more difficult?
How do we know if the New guy wanted too much or maybe didn't even want to come?

There will be lots of versions of this same story but there's one thing I'm sure about
It's Sean Edwards raking this up again not the club
Whatever's gone on he should have had the Brains & the diplomacy to not bring it up again especially when I have no idea WHY he needed to bring it up.

Maybe him & IL agreed to whitewash the story on why he wasn't coming with an agreed mutual statement - And maybe he's broke that verbal agreement again?
Because he can't be upset with the Wigan Club about why he's not here? Since they both agreed the reason why he wasn't coming they've said Zilch, just like he should have.

Simple answer to all of those questions - I don't know and there's only a handful of guys who do. They are good points tho.

As I've said in my two previous posts there's probably a middle ground between the two stories here & I'd say they blame falls closer to SE than IL too.

That being said SE raises a few good points too. Whilst the whole saga has been done to death, I'd be interested to chat about Edwards identifying the need for a S&C coach. We can all question how up to date his RL knowledge would have been, but one thing that transfers well across the codes is S&C (think Bitcon). SE has worked with some of the world's best S&C guys, so it's definitely something to discuss.

As for it being a distraction before the season starts - for me its not going to have one bit of impact on how the guys prepare for Thursday.

Better than talking/arguing with Saints fans about Stuart Fielden tho

One point we should all consider. This interview wasn’t necessarily done recently. It’s not unusual for a paper to hold a story like this then release it at a time when they think it will generate the most publicity.

Wanting a "crack at it' and selling are 2 different things....on top of that replace with Sammutt!

It's no wonder he hopped it....teams don't sell their best assets.....Wigan of the late 80s and 90s didn't.

They didn't, haven't replaced Williams with Sammut!!