Don't be ridiculous - let me start coaching Wigan and I'll have them all looking like a bunch of National League donkeys in no time.

Indeed. Which is why I say good coaching DOES make a difference. However you can't train a donkey to win the Derby (no pun intended! ). The simple fact is that Saints, for the reasons I posted, aren't currently a good enough side to play the structures Wigan play and to suggest, as the original poster did, that if they did they'd be top of the league is disingenious. He knows better, I'm sure. As many posters on here know, I'm not one of life's gloaters. I came on here to read a Saints perspective of today's game. I wouldn't have commented normally, but the post was nonsense and demanded a response.

This is the most one eyed comment I have seen and that's from a Leeds fan!!
Your are either talking out of your Harris or taking the mick.
Roby is the best hooker in the league by far. Mclorum is ok but nowhere near the class of roby.

i agree that a coach can be rubbish and can coach players to be rubbish, but i think robys tackling wouldnt be coached out of him, nor could a kicking game be coached into lomaxs nal over any period under years.
edit not meant as an insult to lomax, just that his kicking game needs working on.

I've probably not put it across very well but I'm not saying player for player we're better than you, I agree that in that aspect you are ahead of us at the moment. What I am saying is that it's your structures that set you apart from everybody else and that if other teams worked with those structures and you worked with a different teams structures they'd probably swap around. It's your structures that make you so good.

But surely the reason Wigan play so well to those structures is because that particular set of players is capable of doing so? In other words, it isn't the structures themselves which are the winning factor but rather that those structures suit the players available. Saints will need different structures due to the players we have. The problem is not that we don't have Wigan's structures, or indeed anyone else's structures, but that we have no structures at all.

Or is that what you were saying?

This was the thing that annoyed me the most today, look at Leulaui (who isn't even a Wiganer), Hock, O Loughlin and more and how they throw everything into the tackle making good contact helping their team control the ruck. We look at Roby as out best tackler because no-one else even comes close. We may get 3 men in the tackle but on more than one occasion today Wigan were able to wriggle free and possibly offload or somehow over raw his tackler.

I love Wellens for what he has done but I'm not starting to wonder whether to play Makinson at FB for example the break Wello made today past Hughes. If that had been TMak it would have been see you later fellas I'm under the black dots but it wasn't and this combined with Hohaia and his dallying with the ball really made things tough today. I think Wheeler could have got into the game more today too, he was content sitting out on the wing dropping anything that came near him. Get yourself in the game Gary, you have the ability to change it! Lomax didn't dictate the team right partially because he didn't even know if he was getting the ball from Hohaia but also because he is a confidence player and that was where he slipped up today. The passes that hit the floor from dummy half in the early stage of the 1st half were embarrassing.

Where to start on the pack! Perry went backwards again, Robes barely had scraps to play off, Flannery was a passenger and Sia was too interested in Gaz Ock's eye colour. LMS had impact and heart, Clough did the hard yards that Perry can only dream about making. Magennis was cumbersome (i think he is still trying to catch old man Finch now) and Wilkin was very meh. Laffranchi gave it a good fist and i don't really have any faults with him, arguably the best of the lot we have brought in recently. We miss TP big time, undoubtedly. The pack didnt come to the party today whereas Wigan turned up with presents and the cake AND they were playing one guy light too.

Frustrated, disappointed but just left wondering where the desire in this team is going to come from.

Our attack has no structures thats for certain! Keeping wigan to so few points shows the defence is ok, but the attack is poor

Yeah, that's what I was attempting to say. If other teams had structures that were as good as Wigans but suited to their players then some teams would be an awful lot better. If that makes any sense at all?

Ah, ok. I see where you're coming from. However to put it purely down to structures is not giving credit where it's due. This is a very good Wigan team. The best I've seen in quite a while. Hence the 2 trophies in as many seasons and currently standing top of the league and one game away from Wembley again. We won at a canter today without even playing to our ability and, as the saying goes, that's always the sign of a good team. Saints time will come again. Of that I have no doubt. But as it stands, your current team couldn't play the gameplan that this Wigan side does. However, as a hypothetical I agree with what you're saying. Maybe you could have put it better though and not been so quick to dismiss what is clearly an important part of the success; i.e. the ability to play to the structures in the first place.

I'm not saying Wigan are a bad team playing with good structures, you're a good team playing with good structures. If you had structures at the level similar to ours you'd probably be around still be in the top 3 on ability alone but it's your structures that set you apart.

Exactly.

I don't think there is any discussion really: this is a very good organised Wigan team.

In terms of the pointless hypothetical argument of who would get into the wigan team: I'd say that only TP, Roby and Soliola (outside chance of Laffranchi who has been a great buy) would get in on current form. I don't think anybody else would get in to be honest.

I'm still trying to get over the fact that one Wigan fan thinks Roby is one-dimensional!