I'm not Wane's biggest fan, but I'd give him another season unless there is another very good option on the table (by which I mean someone who is proven like Maguire or Powell, not a promising NRL assistant). We won the Grand Final in 2016, won the World Club Challenge this year, and were a forward pass off winning the Challenge Cup Final this year, realistically that isn't a bad return given the injuries we have had. I do think we need to freshen up the coaching staff though. The three best teams right now (Cas, Leeds and Hull) all look much bigger and stronger than us, so we either need to fix that, or play a style of rugby which overcomes our size/strength disadvantage.

Quote: jonh "I've not seen the quote so unsure where it is from however if confirmed it did come from Wane and within the club it follows a long line of very negative and poor messages from within the club this year. Not making the play offs is a failure he can dress it up all he wants but we as a club have massively undercheived in relation to performance this year. It's yet another example of the arrogance that seems to emminate from within the club towards the fans at a time when after a season to forget and season ticket sales crucial after losing £60k last season they would be going out of their way to court the fans not tell us we should be lucky at what we have done this year. Des Hasler just become available....just saying.'" Not sure that Des is the answer reading this https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/ ... s-failings

Quote: jonh "I've not seen the quote so unsure where it is from however if confirmed it did come from Wane and within the club it follows a long line of very negative and poor messages from within the club this year. Not making the play offs is a failure he can dress it up all he wants but we as a club have massively undercheived in relation to performance this year. It's yet another example of the arrogance that seems to emminate from within the club towards the fans at a time when after a season to forget and season ticket sales crucial after losing £60k last season they would be going out of their way to court the fans not tell us we should be lucky at what we have done this year. Des Hasler just become available....just saying.'" Not sure that Des is the answer reading this https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/ ... s-failings

In coaching past records count for nothing. Madge has been sacked despite his past, success, Tony Smith has gone despite past success and the same applies to virtually every other coach who has been in the game. Even the great Wayne Bennett doesn't stick around if things are not going well though he has jumped first (like from Newcastle). Coaches like Madge and Smith have been moved on because things are not right NOW. That is where we are at Wigan and it's also blindingly obvious the problems we have are not new. This season could have happened in any of the last three. There simply does not seem to be anything to be optimistic for 2018 about if there are no changes. We can't bring in or get rid of a load of contracted players so I can't see any other way of improving things other than by getting a new coach who can get more than Wane can from this squad of players. We have been here before under Noble. We hung onto him for too long so let's not do the same thing again out of nothing but sentiment.

That's the paragraph that prompted me to link to it.

Sadly, it's time for a chnage

We aren't talking about past success from 3-5 years ago though as with the coaches you have mentioned. We are talking about a coach who won the WCC and made the CC Final this year, and won the GF last year. That alone should give us a reasonable expectation of winning something again in 2018, and justifies giving him another season. I'm not advocating giving him years of no silverware as those guys had, but it would be premature to say the least to sack him at this stage. We have been down the route of regularly hiring and firing coaches, and it led to winning one trophy in 11 seasons between '99 and '09. Unsurprisingly, each coach adopted short term strategies of buying in over the hill antipodeans on short term contracts and largely ignoring the academy, the exact opposite of what has eventually delivered us success from 2010 to date under two coaches.

What are you on about bringing in over the hill antipodeans at the expense of our academy? Where did FPN, Isa and TT come from? Remember Lauaki? We have throughout the Wane era signed plenty of players from outside the club at the expense of our academy and have also been obsessed with bringing players back who left at the expense of the academy not one of whom has yet justified their return to the club. I don't think you have got a leg to stand on suggesting we have been so virtuous in our recruitment under Wane's tenure compared to other coaches and of those recruited the "best" of them have been average bar one, Green.

I have always thought we should have a balance of recruitment and promotion from the academy anyway and have always agreed with John Monies view that if you get two or three good ones from your academy side you have done well but even so the recruitment from outside under Wane has been poor and somehow he has managed to turn players who looked good for others clubs such as Lauaki into players people want rid of!

I also don't see how it follows how the WCC win, making the CC Final this year and winning the GF last year suggests we have an expectation of winning something in 2018. You know as well as I do the route to the CC final was easy and we lost to the first decent team we played in the actual final. You have seen the performances since the WCC with sides with injuries or not. Things have moved on rapidly and Wane is doing as Hasler has done, is doggedly sticking to a failed system. This is the issue. He has shown no inkling that the penny has dropped and change is needed or that he can make the required changes. As I said we can't ship out half the team so we need a coach who can. I think it's actually worse than this in that he is actually damaging the club with his obsession with wrestling, bulked up wingers taking the ball out and props whose main role is defence. It's rubbish and if we stick with this in 2018 which we will it wil if he remains coach I'd be astonished to see us near a final.

I think what's wrong in his comments throughout the season (not just in this interview) is this.

"We fell below our standards"
"That's not a Wigan performance"
"They didn't see the best of us"

A variation of the above comments have been included in pretty much every one of his interviews this season (and many last season). The fact is the Wigan standard is what we've seen in most games and occasionally (very occasionally) we've excelled.

It's sad but performances like Salford the week before Wembley and Saints the week after have been very few and far between and whilst he is often right with the "they didn't see the best of us" line, unfortunately he's wrong, it usually has been "the Wigan standard" and the usual standard has not been good enough.

Bang on.
It’s been said many times on here but we are back as we where with Noble in 09. Our standard is utter drivel. We’ve seen very little for almost 3 years to suggest we have a standard which is anything else.

wane suffers from over expectation at wigan. Despite horrific injuries earlier in the season he's taken to to within a whisker of the top 4 and a wembley final. I think he's over achieved with the players he has. Your front row is rubbish and your outside backs are no better than average for the comp and you have a full back who is way beyond his best and only one half back. Now that may be down to his recruitment and retention but your squad is nowhere near the best in SL and over achieved last year in winning the GF

I don't like the bloke but he has a pretty impressive coaching CV when it comes to finals and trophies

Absolute nonsense.

Sam Tomkins doesn't become poor overnight. I'd personally not swap our Centre pairing for any other in the league, our Props play to a coached game plan our second row is too small, our hooker is 1 dimensional. Our halves are ridiculously inconsistent I'd seriously like anyone to name a team with 4 better wingers than us. We have the best player in the league still at 13.

The one thing I do see however we as a team are playing well below our potential.

Wane is/has followed the same path nearly step for step at Wigan as Noble did in my opinion.

His failure to learn and adapt and loyalty to 1 style of play is holding the team back and also being damaging to individuals in the team.

When Madge came in he signed Deacon and with the same squad took us from bottom to top of the league.

This team has bags of ability however it will never achieve it with Wane at the heals.

tomkins became an average player during his spell at the warriors and Hull have 2 better wingers than any of your 4 and if you think gelling and gildart are the best centres in sl then you need to take the cherry n white specs off mate.

You wouldn’t swap Gelling, for anyone in this league?!!

I said 4 better Wingers. No other club can boast that strength in depth. All would be first choice wingers in most othe SL teams.

Gildart is a very special player in my opinion, Gelling divides opinion but comes up with massive meters every week. As I said personally I wouldn't swap them as a pair for any others.

I don't think there is a better pair in the league. Are they used wrong, absolutely, but as a combination I wouldn't swap them.

Maybe Shenton and Webster are better however ours are at the start of their career not the end.