And I agree with you.

No evidence - of course, he didn't take the action I would have taken so how can there be evidence that it would have worked?
No indication - oh yes there was. Murphy only being one injury away from the first team, and struggling in the semi final indicates he should have been given more game time during the year. O'Loughlin Isn't a good stand off or hooker, I think pretty much everyone accepts that. Whether Powell or L.Tomkins would have done a better job I don't know, but when Leuluai and later McIllorum were unavailable, there was no question of playing either of them, because they hadn't been given any experience. The amount of batterings we handed out and the fact that league placings don't count for much indicates Wane had ample opportunity to give the lads gametime. As for the positioning of Goulding and Gelling, many will disagree but it just made sense to me, we knew Goulding was a good winger and Gelling wasn't, and we knew Gelling's first choice position was centre. I also don't believe that not one player would have improved this season if he was a great coach, but no one did.

He's been a very poor replacement for Madge imo and i say that for a few reasons.

1- At some points it's been the 'Wane show' with some very poor and, imo, crass comments made in the press. Almost every time he's opened his mouth it's come back to bite us. It really makes you appreciate the classy and quiet way Madge went about his business.

2- He's taken our strongest area from last season, our defence, and seemly ignored it for a more attacking game plan. For me we no longer seem to shut teams out, gang tackle or really have the same level of aggression seen in previous seasons. I saw a comment on Twitter today in regards to the Storm which said great attack wins you games but great defence wins you championships! Never a more true word spoken for me.

3- Too many injuries have occurred in training and they've hurt us and our performance. Sam out from an injury picked up in training. Both Finch and Lima were ripping it up prior to picking up big injuries in training.

4- An inability to see what's going wrong. Why persist with Lockers at 6 when Tommy was injured? We had 3 games with him there and it ruined us. Why not just bring Mellor from Widnes in? He surely could have been just as good if not better than Lockers was. Lockers at 9 for the biggest game of the season? Why not start Smith there and let him play the 80mins which is something he can easily do?

5-Signings for next season have been poor. ATEOTD Wane tells IL what positions he needs players to sign in. I think Green might be ok but i dam sure know Sam would be better than him. Why not spend what was quoted as a 'considerable sum' on a different FB like Eden from Hudds and move Sam to HB?

Apart from no. 5, I agree entirely

our defence in our run of big wins april to june was incredible. since, i would agree its been sadly lacking.

I'm pretty disappointed with how we bottled the two biggest games of the season but i won't slag Wane off just yet.

Losing Leuluai hit us more than i thought it would and we didn't seem to get up to speed quick enough when he came back. Also, Micky Mac's head explosion shouldn't be forgotten - you could argue that that was the first nail in our coffin, with Sam's injury the last. As soon as it was announced he was injured i knew we wouldn't beat Leeds.

Sorry, but I can't agree with you there.

Goulding isn't a good winger, he had 1 good season in 2010, and to be quite honest I could have scored a dozen tries outside of Gleeson that year with our attack. He mis-reads plays when he's out on the wing, and whilst flying out of the line at times and making the tackle can be of use, if you miss it then 9 times out 10 you concede. I can't remember a Wigan player being as eager as he was to fly off his wing and make a play that the stand off should be defending as he often did. Granted, Gelling isn't a Pat Richards, but putting him outside of Carmont and keeping Goulding in his natural position was by far the better option IMO.

On the topic of Wane, I expected us to finish below Saints and Wire at the start of the year, so I didn't expect to win the shield. It became obvious he didn't rotate as much as he could/should have, but more experienced coaches than him (just like Tony Smith last year) have paid the price for that.

The rugby has been as good as I've seen at times this year, we didn't, under any circumstances, get our tactics wrong against Wire at home, we lost because of 2 minutes of madness by Lauaki giving them 2 penalties to win the game. I'd argue that we didn't get our tactics wrong against Leeds in the CC either - we gave them 4 tries because of errors in our own half and then were kicked to death by Sinfield and a shocking call for the try McGuire scored. Had Sam not mis-read the 40/20, and had Thaler understood the definition of a knock on, then we could have had a Wembley trip under our belts again.

As for Friday, it was a horrible way to lose, but had Murphy played 1 or 21 games this year, he'd still have dropped that ball which led to the penalty.

Wane's big test will come in 2013 as we have to go through our first perceived 'downgrade' of the squad for a few years with Tommy, Finch, Carmont and Lima leaving.

Thank gawd for this post.

A lot of the criticism about wane seems to be based on "what if" arguments. Who's to say Mellor would have been better than lockers at 6 when tommy was out, or if Logan would have done a better job at hooker since mcilorum has been out!?

And criticising next years signings before they've played is ludicrous in my opinion. We all knew the standard of imports coming in would be drastically reduced once the salary cap in Oz went up. The RFL and sky have known about it also and chose to do nothing about it, meaning we are likely to see more of our top talent going in the opposite direction, especially if further expansion teams enter the NRL.

Wane definitely isn't blameless though. We had mid season games where we were dynamite and put Leeds and saints well and truly to the sword. For whatever reason we were unable to replicate these performances in the big games that really mattered. Players that were in sparkling form earlier in the year dropped off and never got it back (Mossop, Lima, mcilorum, Goulding, finch for starters). We don't seem to have used the 2 free weekends very effectively. We seemed to lack a plan B when plan A wasn't working, and some weeks our forwards were getting dominated. Poor kicking has let us down once again, despite it looking like we'd got over that earlier in the year.

I disagree, Goulding had proven himself to be a capable winger. He's not a bad winger by any stretch of the imagination and claims that he shot out of the line and mis-read the play are hugely exaggerated. If he was that bad then he'd never have been a part of Maguire's squad. It's the usual notice a flaw and suddenly it happens 'all the time'. Goulding was never a bad winger but he was never a natural and never a top winger, just a solid, hard working winger.

The reason he lost his place on the wing was because of fumbles with high balls against Catalans when he also picked up an injury and that let a natural winger, Charnley, get a chance and there's no doubt that Charnley is a very good winger.

The reason not to play Goulding on the wing was that he was doing very well at centre and had, if anything, strengthened that right hand side considerably in defence and therefore it would be a poor decision to take him away from that role. Gelling's defence at centre in the under 20's playoff game against Leeds showed why it would be a bad idea to play him at centre ahead of Goulding.

The biggest concern with the team under Wane is the lack of composure in important games. They messed up in the first half during the cup semi and messed up in the first half during the playoff semi and at times the team just didn't play sensible rugby.

The team just overcomplicate things at times. If you look at the way Melbourne play early on they play one out rugby in their own half. They do that almost all the time, taking no unnecessary risks. We played the exact same way under Maguire and it was pretty effective. Under Wane we don't do that any more and the team sometimes just overcomplicate things for no reason at all. In the game against Catalans the ball went through four pairs of hands on one occasion just so it could be given to Hansen who drove it up the middle and knocked on. Why on earth is there any need to overcomplicate what should be simple plays when the risks far outweigh the potential gains. It's not the only occasion when the team has been trying to pass the ball when it isn't necessary and they should have just concentrated on going forward and waited until there was a chance to start playing.

We also peaked far too early, something that was pretty easy to realise for many and the irony was that when Sam Tomkins said 'we haven't even peaked' after the hammering of Leeds the team was at it's peak.

It's alright saying Wane was inexperienced and learned a lesson like Tony Smith did last year but that's not an excuse for why he didn't learn from that either. That was a lesson for all coaches, not just Smith.

TBF I'm of the opinion that moving Sam to HB would easily have been the best and most sensible option Wigan could have taken.

Firstly I'm not one who's gonna rip into Green on here or criticise his ability. He's a very good SL player who can and will bring some very good things to the team. Sadly however we've lost what are close to or actually are world class talents in Tommy and Finch. If we would have kept Tommy I'd have been over the moon with a good player like Green but we haven't kept Tommy and we needed to bring in or find a world class replacement for him. Green isn't that player but i'm 110% convinced Sam Tomkins is. For me before he moved to FB he was already the best HB in the league and that was after half a season.

Secondly we've paid what was quoted as a considerable sum for Green. For me if we were paying big bucks out it needs to mean top players are coming in. A player like Greg Eden would be a top class signing for not only his ability now but also because of what he'll likely become. Imagine if we'd have signed Taylor and Eden for next season! That's two of the best youngsters out there to go along with Charnley, Hughes, Thornley, Faz & Hughes. It's future proofing the side whilst not compromising on talent.

Pat would have caught it with one hand. There was no pressure on the player from the opposition and it was a classic case of an inexperienced player making a mistake in a game he should have never played in.

Wane's choice of Murphy was beyond idiotic. It is a cardinal coaching sin to pick an inexperienced player in such a key position for a semi final. Has Wane made any excuse for this yet?



Well based on his performance this season we have already downgraded the coach.

After two years understudy to Madge all Wane had to do was maintain the same winning formula but he chose not to.

If you look back at interviews with Wane not long after he took over it was obvious he disagreed with the Madge style of RL and he was set to change it. He said he wanted to improve the side and win the close games we lost, games he felt we should have won under Madge. It was quite clear he thought he could do a better job than Madge by doing things very differently.

So he did change it not just by a bit to tweak it but he went right away from the successful formula Madge introduced.

I was pro Wane being the coach because I feared if we went for someone from outside they would change things and I was expecting continuity from Wane. I thought that was the whole point of him getting the job. A smooth transition and continuity. Alas my fears were realised by the very man I thought would continue the Madge dynasty.

If you have such courage in your own convictions that you will move so far away from a proven winning formula then you have to expect to be judged on your methods and your results and not let off the hook because it is your first year in the job.

Wane has made a lot of mistakes this year some of which were so obvious every one knew they were wrong before kick off and got proved right but that is not what I am talking about. I am on about his whole approach to the job. He decided to do it his way and was well and truly found out.

I think Eden is completely overrated and another example of sky overhyping a player off the back of a couple of decent games. Sam simply has to stay at full back, but he needs the forwards to lay a decent platform and the halves to select the right pass. Finch has seemed reluctant to let his arms go recently and keeps trying the short ball to a 2nd rower and has resulted in so many errors. I don't think green and smith were out 1st choice targets (that's pure speculation on my part but I think dureau, soward and chase were all higher up the list) but if smith and green can fit in to the same structures after a full pre season we'll be alright!

Spot on.

We had a tried and tested approach which brought one SL title and a Challenge Cup win. It's a style that was adopted from the Storm and we've seen what success it's brought them in recent seasons.

By all means he could have tried something slightly different or new in attack just to freshen it up BUT the key and emphasis should always have been on an unyielding defence.

At too many points this season Wane has let his ego step in the way or reason and logic and it's never come off good for us.

Why do people insist on this?

Give me a Cronk, Thurston or Marshall over Barba or Slater any day of the week.

World class HB's make the team tick and give the other great players the space to work their magic. Tomkins is a frightening talent from FB but he wouldn't have done half as much over the past two seasons if Tommy didn't do the clever work before the ball got to him. People sometimes forget that or only seem to remember the actual line break. Very few remember the shimmy, dummy or perfect pass that creates the gap for guys like Slater to go through.

Tomkins would be a world class HB much in the mold of a Marshall.