Sounds like a positive night all around, look forward to watching it for myself on wigan tv at the weekend.

Must be said, what a breath of fresh air it has been having the club be so much more open and engaging with the fanbase this season! Much improved by the club on this front and long may it continue.

Whilst it looks like the club is moving in the right direction & there is a lot more positivity around the club, why did it take Matty Peet becoming head coach and potentially Shaun Wane to be back in the fold?

Are IL and KR deluded? Do they not know what's going on? Are they focused elsewhere?

This isn't an IL/KR bashing, I just don't understand why things have only just come to light and we are making progress?

I posted something similar in another thread. It's like, oops we've messed up and now it's going to take another 3 years to fix it.

I'd have loved to know more about what they've really learned from the last 3 years. The obvious one is, a bad coach can do a hell of a lot of damage. The one I'm not sure that's fully sunk in is - we need a variety of players and not workhorse 5ft 11 guys. Will they do what needs to be done when Singleton, Partington, Isa & others are OOC?

Go and ask the question next time - there's another one in 8 weeks.

I don't think they believe that they've messed up and I wouldn't say that myself either. They've made some good decisions (KPP, Hastings, Bibby, French, Field) and couldn't have forseen the issues the latter two have had personally and with injury. Cust, Ellis and Mago look promising although the jury's still out there. ST sales and attendances are starting to rise slightly after the pandemic which is good news. The retail and merchandise side has been a massive improvement, they look to have secured a good sponsor in Open Exchange and bringing in Mike Danson plus the new deal with stadium helps to secure the club's future. Not all bad.

There's been some poor decisions as well and IL probably phrased it as you would expect ('they don't get everything right'). I think most would agree they appointed the wrong man as head coach in Lam and you could argue that they should have let him go at the end of 2019 as we were performing poorly in spite of the final league position. But they gave him another go with new signings (maybe they had no choice because of the Shaun Edwards situation) and would have looked ridiculous if they'd sacked him at the end of 2020 with a trophy and GF appearance. I think almost everyone on this forum acknowledged that Lam had earned another year on the back of that despite the underlying sense that he may not be the right man.

I agree with you on the players you mention - I think they were all poor decisions. I said that we should have let Isa go before they renewed his deal but not many on here agreed - my rationale was that we have plenty of young backrowers who could do the job he does. Singleton has been a poor signing for me which was perhaps made with more of a focus on the short-term than the long. Partington just isn't big enough and doesn't have a clear position in which he can be effective - I've thought that since he made his debut but we gave him a long-term contract.

The main two priorities for me should be to continue to place a focus on increasing the size, power and explosiveness of our team (compare us to Saints in this area and it sometimes looks like we're running in quicksand) and to assess whether there is anything more we can do to improve the top end quality of our academy players. We haven't had an academy player go on to become a full international since Oliver Gildart. Saints have several who are on that path - combine them with previous academy products turned internationals who have spent their full career at the club and its no surprise that they're out in front at the moment.

Think just coaching wise they may have viewed it as -

2019 - Not ideal but lams first year and lost loads of players from 2018, give him another year and see how it goes

2020 - weird covid year, LLS, 2 mins of a GF win

2021 - wheels came off so they got rid.

I think that more accurately sums it up than "are IL and KR deluded?"

I'll never understand these Wigan fans - especially the ones who "aren't bashing IL and KR" (honest!) - who can never seem to resist having a personal dig at the club's brass.

I mean, seriously. Where else do people think that someone like KR in particular, might be focussed?

AL took the coaching reins in the midst of chaos: the Edwards betrayal followed by COVID. And he still got us to a final. On that basis, how much of an 'obvious mistake' was it to award him an extension?

How much foresight did IL and KR genuinely lack to not anticipate the collapse of AL's team last year? No one else I know saw it coming, either.

I think that is a fair comment but I would have liked to hear how they are going to achieve it and how long they anticipate it will take. We have had the best academy for the last decade so one can only think that we intend to improve our recruitment, off field facilities and backroom staff. However, if we are to succeed then we will need to tie our good young players down on long-term deals (invoking the extra year on KPP's contract will not suffice), we will have to be more ruthless with playing contracts for those approaching their twilight years and we will definitely need to recruit quality overseas players in positions that we are lacking (five of our seven non-federation players have a contract for 2023 with only French and Field off contract - arguably our best players - so there is not a lot of room for improvement there).

Personally, I don't think we are a million miles off reaching the pinnacle in SL. We have the nucleus of a very good team but we need to be ruthless and release players who are not up to standard. There will be some decent SL players coming off contract at the end of this season but we need room on the salary cap to accommodate them.

I actually had a ticket for last night, but circumstances changed and a 6pm start just wasn't doable.

I understand why, but I doubt I'd get a to the point answer anyway. He's not going to say "yeah Partington isn't big enough and Singleton has been a let down". It's more looking for an understanding of why we like certain types (i.e size, or age) than others. Catalan have come from nowhere really and it's all based off seeing good players McMeeken, Tomkins, Maloney Mcilorum & getting them in. We've done that previously under IL with Gleeson, Finch, Carmont, Lima, but have moved away from it?

Undoubtedly they've done some good thing too btw. I'm a big believer in Peet and have been from the beginning. I do however think it's fair to say that they've either messed up, or something's haven't gone right.

It might not have been popular, but I'd have preferred us not to re-sign French when we did. Nothing against the lad & he's a joy to watch but the side needed a prop. Lam aside, our front row is what let us down last year. I remember a Saints fan coming on here about 12 months ago and saying we were a prop short of challenging. We re-signed a FB tho when we had Field and Zak in the squad.

Well during COVID he was doing the job of about 50 people.

can you imagine the melt down had we not taken the option to re-sign our best and most creative player?



do you not remember how dire we were last year without him?

WTF was the Tour de France about on IL's slides?

Most of us did spot the red flags when it came to Lam and very early on too. That's not just me, but others like Jukes who saw the signs from the 1st season. I doubt anyone can label him as being an anti IL or KR guy too.

Go back to the Leigh game, 1st game last season and it was obvious how bad the team was. No shape, no go forward and no hope. Go forward to the Hull CC game, same issues and this time no game plan. Watch the team fold at Catalan and see the frustration in the players and see the stupid pens they gave away. It only got worse too and holding onto him has only made Peet's job a hell of a lot harder imo. Maybe Peet wasn't the right guy to take over mid season, but I'm sure there were options to remove Lam and bring in someone who didn't have Lam's approach to discipline or Culture.

Also where's the line drawn between "not bashing KR" and letting things slip/speaking out about things that have a detrimental impact on the club? KR spoke after the 2014 WCC about needing size and we've only got that in 22. We've all rolled our eyes the new deal Clubb got and yet, have the same mistakes been made with Isa? KR at the last forum Rads said something like "Singleton is a Wigan type of player and one we've wanted for a while". Is that not worrying?

We did sign re-sign our best and most creative player. We bagged Hastings.

You also can't use hindsight to say how much we missed him. No one knew Field was going to get injured like he did. In a salary capped world, you can't have that luxury.

I'll call it right now for this season btw - I'd prefer another prop or 2nd row to be here than French.