Call it a mirror image of last season. Wire were the best side by a country mile last season. Wigan had definately fallen behind them. This year, probably due to the reasons already mentioned on here - injury to M Monas (massive blow), King gone, Morley injured / not playing at same level. Whereas Wigan for whatever reason (Wane / Harris?) have improved players performances and recruited extremely well. Hansen, Goulding, McIllorum, Finch, Sam and Mossup have all improved on last season. Added to that Dudson, Flower, Luarki have been relatively successful recruits. Hock is benefitting from getting game time back under his belt. (When he is not suspended that is!)

I was worried about Hoffman going as he was a class act, however Hock, when he keeps his cool, has been sensational.

Joel left but was not missed as he played a full season out of position at centre anyway, where Goulding has come in and is putting them on a plate for Charnley, something Joel couldn't do.

What tickles me is that Wigan posters last year, knew deep down that Wire were better. Coming out with rubbish like, were not putting 50+ past teams like you are because we are conserving energy. What total rubbish. I don't hear them complaining about wasting energy after Friday nights performance. Alright you lost in the play offs, you didn't bottle it, you just didn't quite get the result against an inspired Leeds.

Fair play to Sally for the opening post. Still think that Wigan / Wire are the best 2 teams by a mile. There will be the odd upset and strange result but the only fixtures I have concern over ATM is you away in the league and the Wembley final should we both get there which would be a great game and worthy final.

Agreed. It's the same few every time. Just when we were getting a really good and intelligent debate going.

This is a good point and I think our squad management and long term planning has been very good going back to Cullen's time.

Matty Smith to Wigan shows that there is a major shortage of good halfbacks around, in the same way that Royce Simmons going to St Helens a couple of years ago showed there was a major shortage of good coaches. Going for Myler and Ratchford when we did was good business, despite the cynicism that fans of other clubs (and our own) showed about those two, saying they were overrated, they are both a cut above Matty Smith.

If you go back to 2004 when we moved into the HJ and Simon Moran bought the majority share as the start of the 'project', the goal was to build a squad that would win trophies and we basically took 3 years to assemble it, by the start of the 2008 season we had the core of the squad in place that would win the two Challenge Cups and minor premiership, most of the core players were mid 20s and a couple of 30 year olds. That squad has been easy to maintain since then, it's been 2 or 3 in and out every off season to freshen it up. That squad has steadily aged and is now four years older and starting to approach the stage where we need 4 or 5 in and out, so thats a challenge, but you will always get that when you have a group of players that are successful - they get old together, you don't want to break them up. I know people like Wigan peer will say we are getting old and everyone knew it, but what are we supposed to do....move on Briers and Morley while they are still good? There is always this cyclical element and even Man United who have had sustained success have had some years when they come to the end of one group of players where they have been overtaken by Arsenal or Chelsea for a year or two before they come back refreshed.

If you do that on their board its an instant ban...

Good post Sal. I'm finding this Matty Smith, Superstar, thing amazing. I really can't see how a player who was binned by Saints and is playing for one of the lower SL clubs has suddenly become the flavour of the month. He's never been that consistent and I just don't believe that he's Wigan class.
We may have 4-5 players approaching the end, but as Sal says they are all still good players, and we already have players coming in to replace them. Hill and Ratchford are looking class, whilst further down the line O'Brien, Dwyer, and Currie have all made strong impressions this year.
Wigan stand to lose both halfbacks, a star centre, and at least one Prop at the end of the season. They will certainly have to re-build.

I agree especially in regardess to us going after Smith. Problem is unlike the last 10 years or more its going to get increasingly difficult to get any decent player from the NRL to come to SL now with the salary cap increase in the NRL. You will really struggle to replace Briers he has improved over the last few years but you can not dodge getting too old. Morley will also be a problem to replace. But its proved in International rugby there are not many class halfs that are British. If Briers had switched alliegances 2-3 years ago he would have made the England squad. That shows the lack of quality England has at present at 6 and 7 even today at the later years of his career he is still better than any England have.

Mass cul will not work well short term but long term might. But you will have a real problem, unless you have enough quality coming through the academy system you will see standards drop as you will not be able to just go and get another King or Monaghan. Tricky situation for most teams now especially since the better young players at most SL clubs are going onto 5 year deals which means a fee will be needed and thats if a club will let their better players go.

The NRL cap increase has made a significant rethink in terms of recruitment. Last point and this has caused me aggro in work you mention Man Utd as a ruthless side in gettting rid of players. Bloody wished Liverpool did the same to Gerrard if ever a player was of someone living off past glories its him and thats what Wire musr evaluate if players perform to a standard than they will stay for another year if not you got to let them go.