Quote: shellman "I cannot understand why wane does not admit his team selection was wrong at widnes.His comments on GMR that he would do it all again are disrespectful to Widnes and Wigan supporters. He does not seem to possess any man management skills. I understand that we need to blood our younger players but not 5 at once. Mr Wane needs to eat some humble pie. If he handledsthe players like he does the supporters we are definitely on the WANE!!'"
General concensus is that he made a mistake by resting a few too many key players at Widnes. Everyone at some point or other will make mistakes. Mistakes are a good thing if you learn from them and find ways to improve on what you did. We lost one league match due to that mistake, we can still top the league despite the loss, we can still go on and win the GF despite it. That one league defeat matters very little in the grand scheme of things for the season. It will much more likely benefit us. Losing as we did makes it less likely that the same approach will be followed later in the season. If for example we draw a weaker SL side or a championship side in the cup it will mean that although some players may be rested we will not see as many left out as we did at Widnes and so avoid an embarrassing cup exit. It also means that if injuries hit at the business end that those rookie players involved will have had at least one match at SL level already and will have experience of a tough, close fought encounter under their belts if they are called upon to play first team again.
SW has not said publicly that he thinks he was wrong or that he made a mistake but if he was to do so then he would be undermining the confidence of the players that took part. To do so would be as good as saying "these young lads aren't up to it, they won't be getting another go for ages" or criticising the efforts of the senior players on the park. What he did say showed dissapointment with the result and some aspects of the performance but gave encouragement and support to the players particularly the debutants and has told them that they will get other chances to impress if they work hard in training. That is what man management is all about. You criticise where necessary and also offer encouragement, support and praise when warranted. You make sure that people know and understand that making a mistake doesn't exclude them from having another go in the future. You also give them opportunities to develop their skills and performance. That's what SW did.
SW has said (in the Wigan Observer) that the players that were "rested" for the last game will be back in on Sunday and has spoken of making a couple of other changes to bring back first choice players from injury. London have the same record as Widnes but there is no talk of any more players being rested for that game with the strongest line up possible being the likely one. This suggests that he has learnt something from the experience and we will not see all but one of the key players rested at once again. Like anyone else SW doesn't need to publicise where he thinks he has made mistakes, he just needs to realise when he has and to learn from them. He seems to have done so in this instance and that is good enough for me.