A lot of the criticism about wane seems to be based on "what if" arguments. Who's to say Mellor would have been better than lockers at 6 when tommy was out, or if Logan would have done a better job at hooker since mcilorum has been out!?

And criticising next years signings before they've played is ludicrous in my opinion. We all knew the standard of imports coming in would be drastically reduced once the salary cap in Oz went up. The RFL and sky have known about it also and chose to do nothing about it, meaning we are likely to see more of our top talent going in the opposite direction, especially if further expansion teams enter the NRL.

Wane definitely isn't blameless though. We had mid season games where we were dynamite and put Leeds and saints well and truly to the sword. For whatever reason we were unable to replicate these performances in the big games that really mattered. Players that were in sparkling form earlier in the year dropped off and never got it back (Mossop, Lima, mcilorum, Goulding, finch for starters). We don't seem to have used the 2 free weekends very effectively. We seemed to lack a plan B when plan A wasn't working, and some weeks our forwards were getting dominated. Poor kicking has let us down once again, despite it looking like we'd got over that earlier in the year.

Correct , in Wigans favour last Friday night .

We were abysmal last week because we weren't allowed to be anything else. Not many sides would have looked good under the pressure that Leeds put us under both from their superb kicking game and line speed. Prior to the Watkins breakaway try we were well on top, but once they got ahead Sinfield murdered us with the boot.

Second half we put them under pressure with good line speed as opposed to waiting for them and it paid off with a few errors but we failed to capitalise.

yes the failure to sin bin the leeds player let alone penalise him in the dying seconds of the game was clearly in Wigans favour. And before you start banging on about the non-knockon that lead to our second try and then rewind a play when the players head was taken off and missed by Silverwood. When it matters.. when it REALLY matters Leeds get the rub. They did the Week before v Catalan and IIRC they won against Wire with a late penalty in last seasons semi. All teams get favourable calls but when a season depends on a call the refs are very keen to please the rhinos

We should have been better. Their game plan worked perfectly. Wane played into their hands putting a young inexperienced FB against Sinfield.

Quality!