Quote: Cruncher "The 16-54 result was very bizarre. IIRC, Wigan just seemed to stop trying half way through. Everyone was mystified.
I seem to recall, though, that despite the plethora of apparent star names at Wigan around that time, there was still a feeling of decline. Crowds were down, people sated by success or simply not liking the new stadium. We weren't a shadow of the team we'd been five years earlier, Bradford and Saints above us in terms of pure quality (of those names you mention, Johns was a big disappointment and Betts was nothing like the force he'd been). We'd also started to lose players to RU - Robinson's departure stunned us, and we only hung onto Rads by the skin of our teeth. Latics had just got promoted and we were constantly hearing that Whelan was going to turf us out. Whelan was also on a sack-the-coach binge whenever we failed to win silverware.
The CC win in 2002 was a blip really. More telling were the Cup Final defeats - against Sheffield (!!!), Saints and Bradford. To lose four finals would have been unthinkable at Wigan a decade earlier. I reckon it was all downhill from around 1998 to our near-relegation season in 2007 (or whenever it was).'"
Excellent posts
IMHO you can only truly judge this team once they have some history - yes we think of Saints 2006 as one of the best but how will Wigan's team appear looking back in, say, 4 years time?
Hopefully something like:
Wigan appear in their 3 Grand Final in 5 years with the best 3/4 line for years the Thornley/Gelling and Goulding/Charnley combinations cutting teams open. Their awesome front row of Flower/Crosby/Powell/Taylor is hard to stop and with Hampshire rotating with the returning veteran Tompkins?
).
