It's something like 22 games out of 50 that he's missed since the beginning of 2013, and our win ratio drops from nearly 90% when he plays to under 60% when he doesn't, so yes I imagine it definitely is a concern!

To be fair, that Win ratio is blow out of proportion to me. In most of those games he misses and you lose, they are usually at a time when you have other players missing also.

That is not in anyway playing down the player, just stating that too much emphasis is placed on the one player missing.

O'Loughlin is simply a player you want playing. Every club is greater with their talisman playing.

I've been massively impressed with Wane. He's at a major disadvantage in terms of player retention yet his teams are always in the mix and 99% of the time when he has to resort to your youngsters they play with real grit and passion and, most importantly, without apparent fear.

Wigan have some good kids and Burgess looks a good prospect, but unless he's knocking over goals and smacking every dropout 70 metres from his line then he's not really replacing Richards.

The issue with Lockers is we don't have another player like him who is so important to both our attacking and defensive structures. If a prop, 2nd row, winger etc. is out, then we can throw a youngster in and expect them to perform adequately. If Lockers is out we either have to play a 3rd prop-style LF, such as Clubb or Flower, so we lose our attacking link from that position, or we put a smaller playmaker in there and lose the tough defence in the middle. It's looking like we're going to run with McIlorum at LF this weekend which will be an interesting comprimise.

It was the same issue when we had Tomkins, we didn't have another fullback who could be utilised as a playmaker out the back, so the whole emphasis of the team's attacking play changed when he wasn't available. This is highlighted by the fact that the last 2 games that Lockers played in that we lost (You and Hudds away in 2013), we had Tomkins missing.

I accept what you are saying. I am just saying that with regards the win percentage, you would probably have lost some of them anyway, even with him, as missing other players also played a part in the loss.

Fair point. Smith is at best an average place kicker who is causing a lot of concern on the Wigan boards. My view is that he will improve in time because he has the technique and also the bottle to do the job well - though not as well as Richards.

Richards was superb for you,it's bad enough to concede try's to any team but when you know the likes of richards and sinfield etc etc will usually kick the conversion . It makes conceding points even more painful.
I remember frano botica, the amount of close games he won for Wigan was tremendous . Reference botica and richards I think on balance botica would be the slightly better of the two.

Frano was a half back who in his early Wigan days played out on the wing purely because he could kick. I don't think modern day coaches would be too keen on doing that. You have to get in the team on merit first.

It's tricky because Richards became a good kicker over time. When he came over he wasn't Wests regular kicker - I think it was Brett Hodgson - and he made himself indispensible. To be honest if he couldn't kick I'm not sure he would have lasted at Wigan as long as he did.

Wests are benefitting from him again now. The commentators wet themselves every time he kicks off!!

To nick a This Week in Leagueism Flanders would be captain of the tampon all stars!

In for 1 week out for 3

I think Wigan have had the weakest squad out of the top 4 or 5 teams for the last couple of years, I was amazed they won the double last year. But the fact that they did, & the style they did it (CC final excepted), has to be largely down to Wane.