That may be so, but the fact remains that unlike St Helens, we do not have the right blend of Academy players and better class experienced players from within our own game and down under.

Hence, the lack of success of the last three seasons or so!

No matter who leaves at St Helens, they somehow always seemed to find a decent replacement.

Yes we do. They've all been injured.

At one stage this season I think we were missing our entire 1-7 in squad numbers amd have had our first choice SRs in the centres.

Let me know how you think they'd get on missing Coote, Makinson, Percival, Grace and Fages. Then take Batchelor and Matuatia out the pack and play them centre and Knowles is also out injured.

I'll give you a clue how I think they'd get on.....every weak team they have played has lost.

They are an exceptional side there is no doubting that, but they have also had the luxury of their best players being fit for long periods. I'd be very interested to see in the last 3 years how many combined games their 1-13 has played and how many ours has played.

I'm not saying we would beat them BTW but we'd have a far better chance than some of the sides we've turned up with. On GF 2019 for example we had our 3rd choice SH playing and even he went off injured.

Put this into context slightly...look at Liverpool over the last 3 seasons.

2019 - played thier best players most weeks, won the CL unlucky not to win the league lost 1 game.
2020 - played their best players most weeks, won the league losing 1 game.
2021 - VVD was injured for long periods and they had midfielders at centre back. Lost 7 in a row at home.

They still finished 3rd as they have a better squad than most and I think Saints would probably be heavy favourites come the playoffs with all their big guns back, but I don't believe their squad/recruitment is majorly better than ours is.

Their injury record is
Ability to keep their best players / spine / settled squad
Ability to blend in youth on their terms (mostly) rather than being forced to

I'm not sure how they keep their best players, that also helps yes but only if they stay fit. Perhaps they've been lucky in signing players like SOL who never went to the NRL or Kris Radlinski. Maybe Walmsley (or his wife) are homebirds and don't want the lifestyle. We have a group of talented young lads who can all up sticks at their age as they have no settled family life. Signing Walmsley is no good though if he spends the next 2 seasons in the stands.

Their injury record allows them to blend the youth players in. I highly doubt we wanted Smith to play every game this season and be our lead SH but we had no choice. Similarly, KPP probably wasn't supposed to play as many games as he did but with all our back row either injured or in the centres we had no choice.

A coach who insisted on putting round pegs in square holes also hasn't helped us get the best from our squad.

Again though...how much is that 'luck' or is it good management? The rate we pick up injuries at wigan is another huge issue, which cant be ascribed to luck. The Saints 13 vs our 13 would be an interesting comparison, but more interesting would be comparing now with our injury levels in the Bitcon days IMO.

Lets hope this new guy...Head of Analysis, Jack Phillips is as good as they say he is as an industry leader in analytics. This is exactly the type of data he should be looking at to establish what is going wrong and why and how we can put it right. Although, anecdotally, I have a fair idea what the results would show in terms of changes to our conditioning regime and level of performance and injuries on field.

We have lost the cutting edge not only because of our failure to retain the best players, but also because our player conditioning isn't anywhere near our rivals. Its why they are often puffing in the second half, don't have energy for creative plays or do the basics (such as support the ball carrier). IMO is also a huge factor in our 'unlucky' levels of injuries.

You put bitcon back or someone of similar ilk to condition our players and we'd also be a different proposition

I don't think our fitness has ever been an issue in terms of playing the full 80, but yes we need to look at the injuries issue but we have apparently played at least 2 players before we should have done.

Have to say, that whole "Shucks, we got it wrong, it was probably mostly our fault" thing about both Burgess and French always seemed dubious to me.

It definitely wasn't an issue. In fact, at the start of the season many commented on how strongly we finished games.

Our fitness, along with our dogged defence, are two plus points from last year.

There has to be some question marks around decisions about players being fit to return.

1 - It was clear Burgess was brought back too early last year
2 - The club admitted they probably played French too soon after his return from Aus and likely caused his injury
3 - Field - Although he did his hamstring, he had recently had a back injury - brought back too soon?
4 - Gildart - Didn't look fit / ready in a lot of games did he (could be attitude issue though)

In fairness to the club, it looks like they got things right with Marshall..

On 2 and 3 you’d like to think the club will learn lessons about giving players extended breaks at home, even in an off season that was the longest in my memory. Those two guys mentioned were rushed back because of knock on effects of the extra time at home for Hastings and French. They played Field without a proper pre season because French and Hastings weren’t back (well available in Hastings case as he was just back) and then played French too early because they’d lost another option in Field himself.

The club needs to do the right thing by it’s players but sometimes it needs to do the right thing by itself. If an extra few weeks at home wasn’t enough, they should’ve been looking to offer a mutual termination IMO and that should be the stance going forward. I don’t think that’s harsh tbh. If you can work out a middle ground than great but it went to far for me and we paid the price.

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The fact that last seasons squad was lower in numbers together with injuries, especially key players and the above average number of suspentions might explain you claim!


Lenagan has said that the club will only be signing one more player when the squad is stll only around the same low number of last season. Up to now, only three players have been confimed as new signings with one unconfirmed, but five players in Bullock, Clarke, Clubb, Gildart, Hastings and Kilner have left the squad.

Add to that a leading player who appears to be discontented because of travel problems, one not been confirmed that he will return from Australia, one who has been on a long term loan with no confrmation of his future at the club and a signing of last season who has yet to prove that he has been a good signing and not injury proned.

As it is intended to re-introduced the Reserves next season, either more experienced players from outside the club will be needed to bring the squad back up to the normal thirty odd players or because of the financial situation, more than usual promoted from the Academy.

The club have made it clear to whre it stands in regard to the new coaching set up, but now they need to make it clear what they intend to about the strength and numbers of the playing staff and not keep supporters in the dark like they have in the past few weeks.


The bookies appear to be showing the same concerns as they have Wigan as fourth favourites to win the the competitions behind St Helens, Catalan Dragons and even Warrington Wolves.

Not sure that explains why we played a SR/LF at centre and hooker when we had a centre and hooker available, or why we played a winger at FB and a FB on the wing.

His team selections were baffling at best.

I agree with you on some selections, but don't forget he had three assistants to whom he could consult, one of whom was the ex. club captain

Like no doubt Peet will do with Briers and O'Loughlin.

Its called a coaching team!