Everything in this thread pretty much spot on. He's a brilliant coach developing what will be a formidable side in the next few years. He's won all 3 trophies and been unlucky in the last two years not to pick up 2 more GFs and a LLS (although Leeds would have been equally as unlucky if we had won either, if that makes sense).

I'm not actually sure why opposition fans hate him so much, bar the usual anti-wigan brigade. He always seems very complimentary of the opposition, he even seems to have stopped the Saints hating and is very complimentary towards KC and his team. He doesn't complain about refereeing decisions half as much as other coaches- last night when asked about the Joel Moon try all he said was 'well it was given'.
He's an English coach loyal to his home town club and is bringing through some brilliant young english players, as he always has- sending up the likes of Tomkins, Farrell etc. when he was coaching lower down. He really has worked for everything he's got with this Wigan side and should be admired.

Opposition fans go on about him being dirty and encouraging his players to go out and commit foul play. Literally this just comes of one comment in the WCC documentary and any fans who think their coach doesn't do exactly the same is either naive or stupid.
Do we really think the likes of Kieron Cunningham and Paul Anderson are telling the players not to be too aggressive and go out and play nicely with the other boys? Give over.

Quite so. When we successfully defend repeat sets near our line, it's praised as good defence on our part rather than poor attacking, but when other teams do it to us it's our attack that's at fault, and nothing to do with their good defence.

In my opinion Saints are by far the best team for scoring short range tries.
They are generally not a team that can go full length unlike ourselves & Leeds, keep them pinned in their own line and don't give away penalties and they can be beaten (quite convincingly too). It's only when the ref starts giving them penalties (or the opposition give away possession in their own twenty) that they get on a roll and score from short range.



Look at our last two visits to LP for evidence.

Of course it should be difficult to score from close range but not as hard as we make it look. As mentioned Saints are masters of it (but in fairness that down to their pretty dull style of play) and the other top sides are far better then us.

It's certainly an area to work on. We are probably the best team in the league from deep (but get labelled as a structured team who aren't the best to watch) but we'll not always be able to rely on that.

Yep, and perhaps no coincidence that their coach made a career of short-range, barge-over tries when he was playing.

Well that doesn't work. Just because our defence may be excellent it doesn't follow our opponent's defense is equally good. If it isn't then if we still struggle to score near the line against less good defences then there [iis[/i an issue with our attack.

What you want to look at is how we go attacking close to the line v the same team as a comparable side. So compare how good we are v Saints close to the line compared to how good Leeds are v Saints close to the line. No idea if these sorts of stats are available but if the general impression is we aren't so good in this area on attack then the fact we might make other teams look poor close to [iour[/i line is neither here nor there.