Interesting that you leave Mac of that list

I think if you looked at Mac's reign which was around four and a half years, you'd observe that he had two fine spells.

The first was in the second half of the 2006 season where we experienced a series of very narrow wins and finished 7th. In that he looked promising as a coach and perhaps had the strongest squad in his reign. He looked like he would be very useful.

However, once he started to bring in his own selected players we pretty much declined, going from 7th to 9th then 9th again and that was in a league with only 12 teams.

The second good spell was in 2009 when we rose to fourth place, though were slightly flattered by the four early games against newly promoted Salford and Crusaders. We won away at Leeds and Hull KR, but that was pretty much it for Mac, with just 1 more win from about half a season.

The following season we pretty much bottomed out with only 6 wins and Mac moved on.

I would suggest that the cupboard in terms of talent was pretty much bare when Mac left, because he had adopted a policy of trying to squeeze one or two extra years out of declining veterans and supplemented it by signing more from Australia and youth castoffs from Leeds and Bradford.

He also did not act to get youngsters on relatively long contracts and a succession of players were tapped up, something I see he is beginning to reoccur at Leeds, although he has at least signed up the first team youngsters this time.

He also had quite a few walkouts, non-arrivals or players who couldn't play over the years which reduced his talent such as Haumono, Villasanti, Fa'afili, Robinson, Wells, Faumunia and James, so he was a bit unlucky but also not pragmatic. The frustrating thing was the policy of seemingly auto-renewing contracts regardless of appearance record, injury record and form.

I think if you look at both Mac and Powell, they did not get value for money from a talent point of view and also squandered players who were better than they went on to sign.

But Tony Rea has only made three signings - Jamie Soward, Tommy Lee and Alex Hurst and he's allowed an army of veterans to go which I reckon Mac and Powell would have retained.

So I don't see how Tony can be tarred with the same brush; once he has made signings then he can be judged.

Mark I always respect your opinion on here but I do have to disagree a bit on Tony Rea. The bit about coaches having not being judged until they have the squad that they wanted with signings that they make has some merit as a coach will want a certain style of play and players to suit that.
But the bottom line is that a coach's main responsibility is to get the best out of the players that he has. I am certainly not saying that we had a great squad but clearly Tony wasn't able to get the vast majority of the squad to play anywhere near their ability otherwise we would have had a better season than we did.
In my opinion it was a bad decision to appoint Tony to the full-time role and nothing he has done since that time has given me any reason to change that opinion.

If the club get another "fresh start" and keep Tony Rea as the coach then I think it will be a very short lived fresh start. Although to be honest I cant see where they are going to get enough players to give any coach much of a chance of success.

I reckon Tony Rea could put a better squad together than Brian Mac or Powell with half of the money they had to spend.

Maybe so, he certainly left a decent one for Mac to inherit.

Claimed today that Wigan have agreed a fee? for Clubb, wonder how much, and how many transfer fees we have received for players?

More sympathy purchases from Lenagan?? Maybe he feels guilty. Quite like Clubb but not gonna add much to their squad and as for Sarginson....

I am amazed that Clubb has gone to Wigan, he had clearly gone past his sell by date here. I will watch his and Sargy's career wish interest. He will get a warm! welcome if he makes it to the Hive!

Id like to see Clubby do well, its good for the game and for us for our products to succeed. I think LMS is one of the most under-rated players in SL.

I wouldn't.

Disloyal git.

On your bike son www.wigantoday.net/sport/wigan-w ... -1-6056085

On your bike son www.wigantoday.net/sport/wigan-w ... -1-6056085

Clubb may well be a "disloyal git" but what I find demoralising is the tiny amount of players we have left even if they can make it through a whole season without injury. Of course the Broncos management team will soon announce a raft of top notch players signed for next season and none of this will matter but I'm not holding my breath.

Clubb in the backs hmmmm really

Charnley is very quick, Matty Bowen very fast too, Joe Burgess and Dom Manfredi are as fast as the others so Clubb should fit in well!

When will anyone learn that it has been many years since Clubb was even able to play in the centre position. He's too big and slow to accomplish this anymore. He can play in the Front or Back row of the back, that's all.