Quote: Saddened! "I can't decide if he did a good job or a terrible one. Ultimately we looked superb in games against weak opposition, then capitulated when we faced the first half decent side we had to play. Any coach would have got us to that point. He is a good coach who will motivate his players and get something near the best out of them. But, he also hamstrung himself picking players who simply had no right being selected. There were several of those and maybe only Hill and Williams justified their selections. The likes of Cooper, Bateman and particularly McIllorum were poor/illogical choices and were poor in the tournament as well.
You'll never get away from that with Wane though. He's Wigan to the core and he sees playing for Wigan or being in the Wigan youth system as being superior than form elsewhere. He's always going to pick the likes of Cooper, McIllorum and Tomkins, even though their performances this season didn't warrant it.
For me he was too safe in his selections. Tomkins has been a fantastic player over the years, but he's not in form and he's lost a lot of his sharpness. Wane should have been more bold and picked Welsby at fullback, his best position. That would have allowed Williams to have an organising half with him. That was particularly necessary because of the ridiculous selection of McIllorum. He was terrible in the World Cup and particularly against Samoa. Lazy distribution, no organisation or planning from acting half and he can't tackle, he must have set a record for missed tackles against Samoa. Leeming or Ackers would have been far better, or even Clarke or McShane with one of those from the bench.
I'm not sure what the international calendar involves going forward now, they've probably not even thought about it. But they need to get rid of the old guard now and focus on younger players. The likes of Tomkins, Hall, McIllorum, Hill, Bateman and Cooper shouldn't be playing for England again.
I'm just not sure if Wane can do that, I'm not sure he's strong enough to do it. He'll probably replace McIllorum with Sam Powell when he retires.'"
All of the team did not perform not just the Wigan connected players.
Wane picked the team as he saw fit they didnt perform,Wane didnt drop the ball or give a forward pass or a interception pass or miss tackles the players did that.
Stop blaming individual players it was a team effort.