some of our signings remind me a bit of the signings we made pre the relegation year. we have definately replaced quality with quantity.

I think its very very early to be writing off Wane and his ideas. I think he made an error by not playing enough first team warm up games which showed on Sunday but i actually like the way our coaching set up looks Wane is a Wiganer he understands what we want and he wont take no crap from the players, Iestyn harris should bring attacking ideas and i thought he did a good job with both Wales and the Crusaders.

What worries me is the lack of a plan b on Sunday we obviously thought our forwards would run over the top of a young hudds pack and we didnt they controlled the game better and with a poor kicking game from us had good field position. I was also concerned with the after match comments that "he didnt see it coming" does this show that he under estimated hudds and expected us to walk over them at SL level you cant afford to do that to any team.

Hopefully an early set back will be a bit of motivation for Wane on Saturday and we can get our season going

You think? I reckon we played worse and won under Madge. I'd point the finger at Hull at home last year which we nicked 14-12 with 12 men.

Even if it was the worst since Noble, I still don't think it was on a par with those kind of bad performances we saw back under him in early 2009.

This line of Wane's interview after the game was quite worrying for me

It was disappointing. I never saw it coming

If he's taking team lightly then it needs to stop asap last season we played Cas and Leeds with weak squads and nearly lost both once these players who aren't regs get a shot they give it 110% to impress

As apprehensive as I am about the new coaching team, I think a bit of reality check is in order here.

When and where did Wane say he was better coach than Maguire? Did he ever even imply that the last 2 years were "a disaster"? When did he ever say we would play a "better" brand of good exciting rugby compared to Maguire?

We're all disappointed after the performance on Sunday, but don't put words in the bloke's mouth.

Where is Amos Roberts? Is he still injured? I'd put him in at full-back, move Sam back into the halves with Finch and Tommy at 9.

How long are Prescott and Fielden likely to be out for? We definitely need some size and agression up front.

my sentiments exactly. however i beleive that both amos and fielden are available for selection and were for the hudds game. i could well be wrong.

however i dont think we'll see sam at 6 again in his wigan career, he is definitely playing on orders. he hardly ever takes the ball in when under the bomb etc and seems happy to take the pass even if it looks risky - no idea where these tactics are coming from and it wasnt just the hudds game, it was teh same since after the CC Final last year. bizarre. either that or he is playing with a knock which is more than worrying.

poor amos needs throwing back in at the deep end, sod his confidence get him playing and it will soon come!

The quote "I didn't see it coming" is odd. Prior to the game Hudds had won on 4 of their previous 5 visits to the DW. Now it's 5 from 6. Yes they had a weakened squad and ours was better.
We had better players Hudds has the better team!

The pack not winning their battle was due to a lack of size. Farrell, Tuson and Flower are too many smaller men when big men are needed mostly these days. Spencer and Hughes to replace Flower and Tuson. Once the Hudds forwards knew they could hold their own it was enthusiasm that got them through together with skill, Danny Brough and a greater will to win.

What happens against Leeds happens. The critical tests are Bradford and Cas away the following weeks. Two good wins and this type of thread will not appear again. Two losses against those and the thread will go to 100 pages.

Come on everyone. It's the first game of the season for Christ's sake.

Goulding played well against Huddersfield IMO. He looked more assured in the role than Joel. It was Pat & Carmont (at least in an attacking sense) that was poor on Sunday, although I take your point over the course of a season.

It is laughable how people are showing a restrained disquiet over Wane after one game. It was a poor one but I expect us to perform better against Leeds, even if we do not necessarily win.

The issue is always going to be with the halves. Thomas 'can't kick' Leuluai shouldn't ever be first receiver. Personally I would bring Matty Russell in against Leeds and put him on the bench. He has played in the warm up games & early season a youngster is less likely to be destroyed by a good attacking side trying to find its feet.

Put Russell on the bench and then bring him on for McIlorum, move Tommy to 9 and put Sam in the halves with Russell taking the full back spot.

He has implied that he didn't agree with Maguire's tactics(drawing the teams in to making mistakes) and promised to play a more exciting brand (hence a lot of work on ball handling skills). Im not doubting his ability as coach, none of us know how good he will be and im certainly not jumping on his back after one game, i just think he is trying too hard to stamp authority on the team, and his expectations are very high. I read an interview were he stated he wanted to win every game this year, maybe this is why he didnt see sundays defeat coming!

So snide sarcasm and invented quotes designed to make the bloke look stupid ("I'm tough, me!"icon_wink.gif are not getting on his back?

Get a grip.

It's the first game of the season. As others have said, if the team is still misfiring in a few weeks time, we'll know he's out of his depth. Until then, cut him a little slack at least.

Cut him slack for not using friendlys why they are there?

Cut him slack for underestimating a pretty decent side?

I'm not saying Wane out or he's doing a **** job but he's made 2 very poor choices and we are only 1 game into the season which it pretty scary

Nail on head
Sundays performance was a continuation of where we left of last year, the difference being we can't rely on supierior fitness levels to scrape us through this season.
IMHO, Wayne or whoever is in charge has a massive job to turn this squad into serious challengers for a top four spot.
To repeat what has been said by many on here, we desperatley need :-
1,A quality scrum half with a good kicking game and the skills to run at defences, drawing the opposition, thus leaving gaps outside for stand off,Sam (talent wasted at full back) to expose.
2, Tommy at hooker in a fully fit pack.
3, A centre who can make space for Charnley (as good as any winger in SL) if the lad Gelling is a good as Deano says he his then give him game time.
I don't buy into this notion that young players need to be nurtured in the U20s for years before we try them, all the greats have made it from very early starts, Murphy, Edwards,Robinson, Gregory etc, etc.
As I said I dont think this will be easy for any coach to turn around, and I'm not advocating making sweeping changes, but if we don't start implementing some new game plans, results like Sundays are not going to be rairities.
Ever the optimist though, I think we will beat Leeds on Saturday.

Wane has brought any early criticism on himself.

Ever since it was made public he was the new coach hes been doing nothing but bragging how hes going to do this and that and how hes going to make us some kind of lethal weapon in attack. Add to that the way hes been less than complimentary about Madges tactics/gameplan in some of his interviews and i think you can forgive people for questioning him. The way he was talking our forwards were going to run harder and our backs were going to be so skillful and fast that they would run rings around the opposition. He was looking to win every game in his own words.

I think people have a right to question him even after one game and a friendly against Salford when the performances were dire and nothing like he had promised. There was no signs of what he promised on show, infact quite the opposite.

He may turn out to of been right as the season progresses but i think most people expected to see something much better than they have done so far and that is down to Wanes big talking throughout the off season.

Hard job to follow a great coach like Madge.

Its gonna be a tough task as madge took a bunch of talented but under achieving players and turned them into a formidable side.

Where does Wane go from here with what is, imo, a weaker squad.

Once your at the top the only way is down! Investment keeps you at the top and can we honestly say we've got stronger after losing Coley, Joel, Gleeson and Hoffman?

I cant believe the over reaction on here, as well as the other Wigan forum, following Sundays defeat. There seems to be quite a lot of anti Shaun Wane bile from some, for whatever reason, and I simply cant believe that people can react like this after just one game. It seems that certain posters on here would rather Wane fail than to succeed just so they can say I told you so.

There were quite a few games last season where we were as bad, and some in which we were worse, than we were on Sunday. Some people seem to be making out that everything was perfect week in, week out under Maguire and things were far from that. At times last season we were awful. People seem to be attacking Wane for any little thing that they can think of and much of it is simply unfair with people throwing wild accustaions and just presuming and guessing much of what they are writing. Wane can only do so much and once the players step onto the field it is up to them. Wane didnt have an awful kicking game, Wane didnt miss easy tackles, Wane didnt keep losing the ball, Wane wasnt a forward that was dominated by a weakened pack. The players did this.

Did Wane underestimate the opposition? No. Have we played any less friendlys this season compared to other years? No. Have we played less friendlys than other teams? Again no. Was our kicking game any worse than previous years? No. Unless I am mistaken Bitcon is also our conditioner so why is Wane getting all the blame for what they see as a lack of fitness? Do you really give Bitcon that little credit and think that Wane has just totally changed the conditioning without Bitcon's say so? We have played one game of what is a very long season and we will get better. No team should be looking to peak in week 1 and I am sure we will build and get better as the season goes on.

His comment after the game says that he did why else would he say 'i didn't see that coming'?

2 We have brought in more new players than other seasons and we have a new coach i think playing a full strength team in all 4 would be the smart choice

I presumed he meant that he didnt see such a poor performance coming. I really cant believe that people think he meant that he didnt see a good performance from Huddersfield coming or similarly some other demeaning comment towards Huddersfield.



When have we ever played 4 friendlies with a full strength team? Never. What does a full strength team battering Leigh really achieve? Absolutely nothing. If we played a full strength team in 4 friendlies then I would guarantee that the moment the team looked tired in the season then the same people that are blaming him now would be saying it is his fault that the team are tired because of playing so many meaningless friendly matches. Also I dont see how it is really wise to play the likes of Carmont in 4 friendlys when his body isnt going to hold up for a full season as it is. The spine of the team is the same and most of the players that have come in are squad players who arent even in the first choice 13 so they wouldnt have been playing anyway if we went with a full strength team.

Famous,
You are correct, when Wane said that he didn't see it coming he was referring to Wigans performance, not Huddersfields. He said that Wigan had trained really well in the week leading up to the game. The amount of lost ball and poor last tackle options were the killer, but to be fair the warm up games at Wigan, Salford and Leigh did follow a similar pattern.

One thing I hope doesn't become diluted under Wane is the mentality of togetherness. That IMO was one of the great strengths of the Maguire regime, it was never all about him or his tactics or any individual performances. There was always a big emphasis on winning as a team or losing as a team.

I still fancy us to turn it on against Leeds and most of this will be forgotten next week. I hope

No, it is down to Wigan fans wanting to see the best and expecting it given that they've currently got the Challenge Cup in their cabinet and only recently had to hand over the Championship. It's nothing to do with Shaun Wane 'talking big'. What crap that actually is. What do you expect him to do, talk us down? How would you feel if he told a reporter that he didn't think we had much chance of winning anything this season?

At the end of the day, colourful language like yours was all over the Saints board at the start of last season re. Simmons. "He doesn't talk like a coach. He doesn't even look like a coach. Let's face it, he ain't a f*****g coach!" And yet now I doubt they'd swap him for anyone.

People don't have the right to question Wane after one game, regardless of what you think. First games are notoriously difficult to call. If we're still seeing the same crap in a few weeks time, then it may be a different matter.

But

Just O/T does anyone know the last Wigan coach to lose his first competitive game in charge?

Early days, Saturday will be interesting.