Have to agree and say it can't be classed as a failing at all. Admittedly its not great to have to put players out there that are not 100% but its no good putting young lads into a team just for the sake of it especially with so many inexperienced players already in the 17.
Yesterday needed a little more experience out there but unfortunately we simply didn't have enough which comes back to the under investment in the youth set up that Pearson spoke about and the fact as fans we have all criticised the previous Coach for not giving some of the youth a chance.

No matter what we did yesterday was always going to be a hammering as the players have simply giving everything and more in what have been very tough fixtures. The weekend break will help to recharge the batteries and hopefully get some much needed players back for the fixture with Leeds.

Think to say it was a failing on Gentles part in harsh

I think people are being a bit disrespectful to Wigan who looked the real deal yesterday it was men against boys literally. We had nine players out and a couple carrying knocks even with them back in the side we would have struggled.

PS Please sign Finch use manu and Hornes wages just sign him.

nail on the head that......

Aye. Wigan certainly had the smell of blood right from the kick off and that first set of 6 set the tone for the game.

Use which ever word you think suits as I said I an not knocking the guy but we have just conceded a record number of points at home. Mitigating circumstances yes as I alluded to but it was still a very poor effort. Coach has to take some share of blame.

Agree with the 1st bit! Wigan best team iv'e seen this year! 1st set was as good as u get! Wade n manu wage would more than cover finch! Would truly love him here,so smart and always barking! Horne could go fullback n then provide good cover at 6!

Finch wants to stay and Wigan want to keep him. Not gonna happen.

He's not signed out yet and you don't know until you try. Money talks apparently.

Wigan came out knowing that they were up against a very weakened side and went for the jugular from the off and it paid off for them.

true, but if you know your in for a spanking, you dont go out with your belt undone and your pants allready down! rolled over way to easy for me no matter what side we had out.

expect him to stay there to be honest! They cant afford to lose him n tommy L in same season. Heard we've signed someone from Salford. If it isnt Broughton i wouldnt mind it being Holdsworth!

Totally agree...

The measure of the man will be how we respond once he has the majority of his players back and the playing field is more level.

to be fair he wasnt happy with yesterday still inspite of the squad we had out there. Plus as good as wigan were they couldnt have got a better bounce of the ball(2 tries from rebounds) n ref dint help us at all-especially tomkins winning pen pulling martin on him via his head guard leading to a try. Whiting was nothing special yesterday n dont think he was fully fit. Limping n ice on hamstring last week. Think it was 1 of them days were everything was aligned for us to get a good spanking!

I don't see why there even has to be 'blame'. If you take 9 first team players out of any side in our sort of position (or higher, even), then put them against one of the top two sides in the competition who are fully fit and rested, you would almost certainly get a similar sort of scoreline. And as I said, it's not just the players that were out, but those who were playing who weren't fully fit. These are not just 'mitigating circumstances', but compelling reasons for us taking a bit of a pasting. There's no 'blame' to apportion, as far as I'm concerned.

We had a lot of young players playing together with a number of patched up senior players. The opposition, possibly the best team in the league currently, had a full strength side out having had the luxury of resting some players after Easter.

I'm not really sure why the OP wants to blame anyone. It's not a question of blame but one of circumstance. The fact Wigan put 50 odd on us yesterday isn't relevant to what the club have started to do since the takeover. It wont have any great bearing on what we do for the remainder of this season or the next two. What it does do is show the size of the task ahead but that's no bad thing.

How can you say that we looked beat before the game even started. From what i saw, the players that took the field tried whatever they could. At times Wigan didn't know what had hit them. We had some good sets in defence and a few decent attacking sets.

We were beaten by a bigger, stronger, quicker and smarter team. It's that simple. Gentle did exactle what he could to put the best team out as possible.

As someone mentioned above, Gentle can't be blamed for the lack of youth developement over the last few years, the lads that are being tried by Gentle are giving their all, but just aren't quite at the grade yet, not really from any fault of their own.

I wasn't trying to lay blame as such just that everything he does and says it met with praise and yesterday was a day when there could have been gentle critcism. We are allowed to ask the odd question and challenge the odd decision.

I have no worries long term as I have already said in my original post but even allowing for everything, yesterday was still very poor.

Then, you'll have to forgive me. I was momentarily confused when you said:

"Coach has to take some share of blame."



I would disagree. I don't think there's anything Gentle could have done differently yesterday to prevent the defeat or even to noticeably alter the scoreline.



No one has said otherwise. But equally, other posters are allowed to challenge your criticism if they feel it is unjustified.



Again, I don't see it. Wigan in that form are difficult to contain with a full strength side. With nine first teamers out and a few guys playing whilst injured, it's easy to see how things ended as they did.

It's quite possible that an in-form Wigan could have come to the KC and beat our first string by, say, 20 points. We lost by 44 yesterday, and it's easy to see where the 'extra' 24 points came from.

no first choice half backs, virtually no 1st team centres, down on 2 front line props and facing the most in form team in the league (hudds apart). reckon gentle more or less sacked the game off, better to take the beating then get down to 2 weeks off the get players back, and this bit is important, get players back who are fit enough to play. its pretty obvious that there are players who have played the last 3 or 4 games not fully fit. this is now the chance to get some rehab going

We'll see how far we've come in a couple of weeks against Leeds. Gentle himself as said he expects around 6 or 7 frontline players to be back, if that's the case then we have no excuses. It will be interesting to see how we go.

Dont't think it's "sacking the game off" , what else could he do? he played the 17 players available to him , there may have been a couple of choices but essentially it's who's left standing. He said at the start that the squad wasn't good enough to compete at the top and yesterday proved that it lacked depth and in all liklihood quality. Something he has said he will address.

I did think more than once about posting this thread.

Yesterday was the first time we have not competed under Gentle's reign and there were major factors such as injured players, players not fully fit and too many young players in at once. I have alluded to all this and did state in the very first post that I wasn't trying to have a go at the guy. Just merely saying that despite the circumstances the performance wasn't good enough. We were beaten from the very first set yesterday and should have stayed in the game longer.

It's more an observation that an out and out criticism. Against Hudds in both games were lost convincingly but we did compete and were in the game for long periods. Yesterday was different. I am not worried though and have complete faith in Gentle and what he is doing.

I have noticed though that since AP/Gentle came in people don't like questions being asked whether it's new signings or any other issues. In the interest of balance I don't think it's wrong to say we were very poor even accounting for the mitigating circumstances.

You have? People like who?

perhaps sacking it off was the wrong phrase, i meant not going at the game like a bull in a china shop and getting even more injuries - i know injuries can occur anywhere and at any time, but i think gentle was happy with a conservative game yesterday

Got to agree with all these sentiments:

I cannot believe that some would prefer to revert back to Agars ways of moving players around?

As for Martin, sometimes you have to give the players the call and trust their judgement, if fit enough or not.