You can be critical of Lam all you want but ultimately he didn't miss those tackles and concede really stupid penalties today. The team looked lethargic from the start and played some really dumb stuff against a dangerous side. It exposed one of our biggest weaknesses and it's not something that is easy for the coach to fix. Our pack is just not looking capable of making good yards down the middle and that's not something we can really solve by bringing in someone else from the squad or making positional changes. It's not even purely down to size either. Singleton, Clubb, Bullock, Byrne and Clark are all around 110kg which is what you expect for a prop, but Singleton has never been a big metre maker, Clubb offers nothing at all going forward, Bullock seems hugely unfit so barely capable of more than 20 minutes, Clark might make one or two good carries but is poor overall and Byrne is a hard worker but few young props are really dominant going forward until their mid-20's.

We basically just made errors and gave away penalties, gave Catalans easy field position, then conceded really soft tries and so when it came to trying to turn the game around we had absolutely nothing to give. Our hardest working forward was probably Joe Shorrocks, who was tackling all over the pitch, making plenty of carries but he's about 87kg wet through and not someone who's going to give Catalans trouble down the middle.

Forget the coach for a moment - none of those players should be putting in performances like that regardless of who is coaching. You can't put everything that happened on the field at Lam's feet. They are clearly capable of more and let themselves down.

It's not the end of the world - we've had terrible performances under every coach - but boy there needs to be a lot of improvement from the team and quickly or this season could get derailed within a couple of months. We've had an easier run in than you'd expect in a normal season because of covid delaying the bigger fixtures. We can't keep relying on doing just enough to win but playing poorly and today showed that good teams will punish us.

Ultimately though I think we've had a poor front row for years but had strength in other areas that has helped to make up for that. The problem is if those previously strong areas start to show weakness we're going to be badly exposed. We've always had a strong back row that carried the weight of our metre making and an outstanding group of outside backs that helped a defensively solid but physically weak front row. This year we don't have the strength in the outside backs, Bateman has been a good metre maker but full of errors, Farrell has been in and out of the back row and our middles have been showing a bit more frailty in defence without experienced middles like O'Loughlin, Clubb and Flower.

A good coach can limit the distance between a good and poor performance. Today has been three seasons in the making. A change of coach can breathe some life and much needed positivity into the team/club. What we have now is neither worth paying money to see in person or watch on TV.

Doesn't wash with me that argument. We have had the same issues for 3 years. A coach or managers job is to address them. He hasn't because he can't. Time to go. I allowed him Leeds in the cup last year but for a coach with so much attacking threat at his disposal and getting absolutely nothing out of them is incredibly poor. He has turned a good side into a very bad one. Imagine what he would do to a side with no resources?

I can't back sacking a coach who has ultimately won 7 from 8 despite an injury crisis in the backs. I wouldn't renew his contract though and hope we have begun the search for our 2022 coach. If things get worse then yes sack him, but right now he has been generally getting enough results to keep him in the job.

IL has never sacked a coach yet and won't happen this season regardless of how bad it might get. Lots of tough decisions on contract extensions to be made by the Wigan management. I for one hope we show some ruthlessness.

The very definition of ruthlessness would be getting rid of Lam now. The time of season and how long is left in it makes it a no-brainer for me. Just look at Chelsea tonight.

I did. It wasn't much more fun than watching Wigan!

They are backs though and the problem is the pack. Field looked very exciting before the injury (well for the minutes he was in the pitch) but why did we recruit him? French was also relatively unknown but despite his obvious talent Lam doesn’t seem to know how to get him into the team when fit along with Hardaker.

We lost Burgess, Flower and our biggest back row in Greenwood and signed another back. We are now linked with Thornley and even Gelling. It all seems a bit haphazard to me.

He didn't. He just didn't mention them because it didn't suit his juvenile agenda.

But I'm not going to pretend that all is well. It isn't. We aren't good enough man for man, and the coach is unable to get us up for any games that involve more than average effort.

Sorry to say this, but I hope we are now looking for someone else.

In the Radlinski interview he mentioned that June is usually a tough month for him. That's because June is when decisions around contract extensions are made.

Who to extend (and for how long/how much).
Who to let go.
Who to recruit to replace those let go.

I'm sure I heard that something like 9 players are out of contract this season (may be 8 now Gildart has been made official). If someone could add a link, or list the players below that would be appreciated.

In addition IL's one year rolling contract is also up for renewal. So plenty to get through over the next four weeks.

Makes shocking reading this: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... ssion=true Quote We haven't been great admittedly over the recent weeks. To some degree, a loss was coming but to that extent, I just don't understand how we've got to that point '" Quote Whether that's an attitude or we just weren't quite there in the sense of how tough it was, but the preparation in the week was focused, we trained OK, but it's the penalties and errors that have hurt us the past three weeks. A loss was coming but to that extent, I did not see that coming'" If your coach's attitude is simply 'a loss was coming' then no wonder the effort today was zero (much like the scoreline). Out of his depth.

Makes shocking reading this: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... ssion=true Quote We haven't been great admittedly over the recent weeks. To some degree, a loss was coming but to that extent, I just don't understand how we've got to that point '" Quote Whether that's an attitude or we just weren't quite there in the sense of how tough it was, but the preparation in the week was focused, we trained OK, but it's the penalties and errors that have hurt us the past three weeks. A loss was coming but to that extent, I did not see that coming'" If your coach's attitude is simply 'a loss was coming' then no wonder the effort today was zero (much like the scoreline). Out of his depth.

If Maurice Lyndsey was still here he Lam would have been sacked after the game today with the Hull defeat and now this miserable show ML would have sacked Lam.