Quote: phibes "I was encouraged by the way we played in the cup but yesterday was a huge step backwards. While I agree with comments already made about specific players, what depressed me most was the lack of energy, particularly in that spell in the second half when they killed off the game.
On one hand, I’d question the attitude of the players, which for me, hasn’t been great all season - might be my imagination, but I’m seeing more instances of players are snapping at team mates in 2019, players taking time to get back in the defensive line etc. But then when I look at our structures in both attack and defence, we continue to make life hard for ourselves and easy for opponents. Holding the defensive line and not moving up is gifting metres to the opposition attack. The attack remains as one dimensional as it was under Wane, a lot of one-man carries, shifting wide so slowly that it rarely troubles a sliding defence.
As poor as some individuals were yesterday, the whole team seems locked into patterns and structures that simply don’t work or don’t work often enough. Its sapping energy, composure and discipline from the team.
I was hoping that Lam would transform our attack while maintaining our strong defence. Sadly, based on the evidence so far, he’s failed to do the former and our defence is much worse. I know recruitment’s been poor, I understand why some posters think the coach has been dealt a bad hand, but I still think we should be much better than we are.'"
When you put it that way, it looks as if the problems are much more fundamental than having a few crap players who aren't trying very hard.
Of course, as things are, we have more than a few crap players, and even the ones who aren't crap aren't trying very hard. But all the things you mention are noticeable. We look totally disorganised - those passes to ground yesterday were terrible - give away constant back-to-back penalties (which few others teams do) and seem to lose our heads immediately when things are tough. The way we collapsed in 10 minutes yesterday was exactly like the second half at Castleford and the second half at Wakefield (none of which sides are anything special at all). At present, we have a team who could be ahead by 30 points and I wouldn't be certain of victory until a minute from the end.
Sorry, but Lam is useless. Week after week, Wigan seem totally unprepared for the demands of Superleague. In 2010, Michael Maguire took over a side that under Noble got nowhere near winning anything, and with no new signings turned them into champs in one season. They were the same players but under Maguire they started the season hyper-fit, looking well-drilled, well-oiled, and displaying the sort of controlled but intense aggression that we hadn't seen at Wigan in years.
I know that Maguire had better players, but my point is that a coach who actually knows what he's doing can work wonders. Besides, we can't just replace our cohort of underperforming losers so easily. That'll only happen over a period of years. However, we can change the coach - and the sooner the better.
