Perhaps you could not be so condescending? this a forum, I shared my opinion. If you do not agree with that is fine, you like everyone else on here are entitled to their opinion.
if you are referring to his kick over the top for Burgess try, yes that was great and in my opinion 10 seconds of magic in 80 minutes is not good enough. In my opinion SW is to blame for Williams being chucked in at the deep end with a poor recruitment strategy but he is what we have and therefore will come in for scrutiny. That is life.

Hang on a minute. How do you know it is Wane's fault? What about Ian Lenegan? Why is it he is largely escaping any criticism?

It seems to be a popular opinion that Wane calls the team building shots and is insistent we play kids and replace everyone from within. I don't buy that at all!

Promoting from within=Cheap

Cheap is music to the ears of Ian Lenagan.

Ian Lenagan is a legend for what he's done for this club but he as much as anybody needs to change and improve based on current performance.

Precisely - Wigan's most successful teams will always be the best of locally produced players complemented by a number of others brought in from outside, some of whom will be Antipodeans. It is obviously more difficult to attract a sufficient number of outside stars because of the salary cap, but there is no excuse for not spending the full amount of the cap. We are crying out for an Aussie/NZ prop, second row and half back.

No coincidence that MM brought in quality players in those positions in Lima, Hoffmann and Finch - I know he was very lucky they all became available as they did.

The fact that a figure of a squad of 35 is frequently quoted must mean that the quality of the playing staff as a whole has been diluted - even though not all of them count on the salary cap.

When one looks at the Leeds, Warrington and Saints squads, they certainly seem to have more "stars" who are performing well and to their potential than the current Wigan squad.

Poor recruitment the past couple of years, I am afraid. Over to you, IL, Rads or Wane - if there is money available to be spent, get it spent, even if it means paying a transfer fee. If Lockers doesn't make a huge difference ( which he may not as he is physically incapable of performing regularly to the best of his ability), Wigan are really going to struggle this year unless there are some signings.

Or maybe if Wigan can get their first choice pack onto the pitch, with Flower, Lockers and a fitter MM, the half backs, whoever they are, can start to perform to their full potential.

You can't invest considerable resources and faith in an academy only to then forget about it whenever the next first team contract expires.

That said, there's absolutely no guarantee that a special academy player will mature into an equally special first team regular.

The smart play is to balance one against the other but the task is made enormously difficult by the complications which sprout from how the former combine with the latter. It's no use putting talented academy lads alongside established pros who don't provide a particularly good example or possess serious flaws within their game because bad habits picked up at an early age can take a lifetime to undo.

The best teams think ahead two or three years. But it's very difficult. It only takes one or two bad buys from Australia to lock up a significant chunk of the salary cap for a desperately lengthy period. Suddenly long-term thinking goes out the window and the club resorts to fighting fires with panic buys.

Generally speaking I think Wigan have done ok. But Wane/the Chairman/whomever has allowed one or two deficiencies to develop within the team which, left unchecked, could become a destabilising problem. I think next season's transfer market is absolutely critical for Wigan. A couple of good quality established pros should plug the gap. But the sixty-four million dollar question is - who?

Any coach stupid enough to take on a job where they do not have full control of player recruitment deserves criticism. He is paid to deliver results no one can do that with one arm tied behind their back. I dont believe this is the case. Wane has full control and has failed miserably.

Why all the talk about next season? We've only played 6 games so far in this one. Imo we only need a small improvement to become a contender and with the troops yet to return I'm not writing us off yet. I say again, the quality of Superleague being what it is means we are still in with a chance of success this year. As crap as we were against Leeds we should have been buried. Trouble is, every team in the comp is poor!

Stop talking sense - this won't go down well!

Even if we lose to Saints (I'm not saying we will) - we can win against Wakey, Salford and Catalans, and by my reckoning we will be in 4th place or thereabouts. Something to build on for sure.

Our period of dominance in the late 80s and early 90s was achieved with a policy of the board and not the coach making the signings so we must have had quite a few stupid coaches by your reasoning back then. They seem to have managed to deliver results. To be a success a coach doesn't necessarily need to have chosen the squad he has at his disposal. He just needs to be able to organise their play in a way that fits the strengths of those players he has and does not rely on areas of the game at which they are weaker.

Perhaps we are currently struggling to adapt the style of play after the loss of some personnel with strengths we no longer have and will soon fix it. Perhaps the person(s) responsible for recruitment policy has made error(s) in their approach that are now cumulatively costing us as the team is just less capable of competing at the top. Maybe it is a bit of both. Either way some mistakes have been made somewhere, making mistakes is fine, everyone does that at some point. It is recognising that you have made mistakes and how you react to those mistakes that matters. The people in charge at the club (board and coach) have done alright so far so I am confident that what is currently not right will be fixed. It just remains to be seen how that fix is achieved.

Hang on a second: I said Wigan seem underpowered in the front row. This does not equate to writing Wigan off because the club still possesses quality players. And I agree, the competition seems mediocre. It's a lengthy season and injuries will undoubtedly go a long way toward deciding who finishes in the top 4.

Strange thing is, I seem to recall that most people on here pre-season were saying how strong the squad looked, and particularly the pack. They just haven't got going yet, but it's hard to believe they've all turned into no hopers in that time.