my sentiments exactly. however i beleive that both amos and fielden are available for selection and were for the hudds game. i could well be wrong.

however i dont think we'll see sam at 6 again in his wigan career, he is definitely playing on orders. he hardly ever takes the ball in when under the bomb etc and seems happy to take the pass even if it looks risky - no idea where these tactics are coming from and it wasnt just the hudds game, it was teh same since after the CC Final last year. bizarre. either that or he is playing with a knock which is more than worrying.

poor amos needs throwing back in at the deep end, sod his confidence get him playing and it will soon come!

The quote "I didn't see it coming" is odd. Prior to the game Hudds had won on 4 of their previous 5 visits to the DW. Now it's 5 from 6. Yes they had a weakened squad and ours was better.
We had better players Hudds has the better team!

The pack not winning their battle was due to a lack of size. Farrell, Tuson and Flower are too many smaller men when big men are needed mostly these days. Spencer and Hughes to replace Flower and Tuson. Once the Hudds forwards knew they could hold their own it was enthusiasm that got them through together with skill, Danny Brough and a greater will to win.

What happens against Leeds happens. The critical tests are Bradford and Cas away the following weeks. Two good wins and this type of thread will not appear again. Two losses against those and the thread will go to 100 pages.

Come on everyone. It's the first game of the season for Christ's sake.

Goulding played well against Huddersfield IMO. He looked more assured in the role than Joel. It was Pat & Carmont (at least in an attacking sense) that was poor on Sunday, although I take your point over the course of a season.

It is laughable how people are showing a restrained disquiet over Wane after one game. It was a poor one but I expect us to perform better against Leeds, even if we do not necessarily win.

The issue is always going to be with the halves. Thomas 'can't kick' Leuluai shouldn't ever be first receiver. Personally I would bring Matty Russell in against Leeds and put him on the bench. He has played in the warm up games & early season a youngster is less likely to be destroyed by a good attacking side trying to find its feet.

Put Russell on the bench and then bring him on for McIlorum, move Tommy to 9 and put Sam in the halves with Russell taking the full back spot.

He has implied that he didn't agree with Maguire's tactics(drawing the teams in to making mistakes) and promised to play a more exciting brand (hence a lot of work on ball handling skills). Im not doubting his ability as coach, none of us know how good he will be and im certainly not jumping on his back after one game, i just think he is trying too hard to stamp authority on the team, and his expectations are very high. I read an interview were he stated he wanted to win every game this year, maybe this is why he didnt see sundays defeat coming!

So snide sarcasm and invented quotes designed to make the bloke look stupid ("I'm tough, me!") are not getting on his back?

Get a grip.

It's the first game of the season. As others have said, if the team is still misfiring in a few weeks time, we'll know he's out of his depth. Until then, cut him a little slack at least.

Cut him slack for not using friendlys why they are there?

Cut him slack for underestimating a pretty decent side?

I'm not saying Wane out or he's doing a **** job but he's made 2 very poor choices and we are only 1 game into the season which it pretty scary

Nail on head
Sundays performance was a continuation of where we left of last year, the difference being we can't rely on supierior fitness levels to scrape us through this season.
IMHO, Wayne or whoever is in charge has a massive job to turn this squad into serious challengers for a top four spot.
To repeat what has been said by many on here, we desperatley need :-
1,A quality scrum half with a good kicking game and the skills to run at defences, drawing the opposition, thus leaving gaps outside for stand off,Sam (talent wasted at full back) to expose.
2, Tommy at hooker in a fully fit pack.
3, A centre who can make space for Charnley (as good as any winger in SL) if the lad Gelling is a good as Deano says he his then give him game time.
I don't buy into this notion that young players need to be nurtured in the U20s for years before we try them, all the greats have made it from very early starts, Murphy, Edwards,Robinson, Gregory etc, etc.
As I said I dont think this will be easy for any coach to turn around, and I'm not advocating making sweeping changes, but if we don't start implementing some new game plans, results like Sundays are not going to be rairities.
Ever the optimist though, I think we will beat Leeds on Saturday.

Wane has brought any early criticism on himself.

Ever since it was made public he was the new coach hes been doing nothing but bragging how hes going to do this and that and how hes going to make us some kind of lethal weapon in attack. Add to that the way hes been less than complimentary about Madges tactics/gameplan in some of his interviews and i think you can forgive people for questioning him. The way he was talking our forwards were going to run harder and our backs were going to be so skillful and fast that they would run rings around the opposition. He was looking to win every game in his own words.

I think people have a right to question him even after one game and a friendly against Salford when the performances were dire and nothing like he had promised. There was no signs of what he promised on show, infact quite the opposite.

He may turn out to of been right as the season progresses but i think most people expected to see something much better than they have done so far and that is down to Wanes big talking throughout the off season.

Hard job to follow a great coach like Madge.

Its gonna be a tough task as madge took a bunch of talented but under achieving players and turned them into a formidable side.

Where does Wane go from here with what is, imo, a weaker squad.

Once your at the top the only way is down! Investment keeps you at the top and can we honestly say we've got stronger after losing Coley, Joel, Gleeson and Hoffman?

I cant believe the over reaction on here, as well as the other Wigan forum, following Sundays defeat. There seems to be quite a lot of anti Shaun Wane bile from some, for whatever reason, and I simply cant believe that people can react like this after just one game. It seems that certain posters on here would rather Wane fail than to succeed just so they can say I told you so.

There were quite a few games last season where we were as bad, and some in which we were worse, than we were on Sunday. Some people seem to be making out that everything was perfect week in, week out under Maguire and things were far from that. At times last season we were awful. People seem to be attacking Wane for any little thing that they can think of and much of it is simply unfair with people throwing wild accustaions and just presuming and guessing much of what they are writing. Wane can only do so much and once the players step onto the field it is up to them. Wane didnt have an awful kicking game, Wane didnt miss easy tackles, Wane didnt keep losing the ball, Wane wasnt a forward that was dominated by a weakened pack. The players did this.

Did Wane underestimate the opposition? No. Have we played any less friendlys this season compared to other years? No. Have we played less friendlys than other teams? Again no. Was our kicking game any worse than previous years? No. Unless I am mistaken Bitcon is also our conditioner so why is Wane getting all the blame for what they see as a lack of fitness? Do you really give Bitcon that little credit and think that Wane has just totally changed the conditioning without Bitcon's say so? We have played one game of what is a very long season and we will get better. No team should be looking to peak in week 1 and I am sure we will build and get better as the season goes on.