I totally understand people’s reservations about Lam. We haven’t exactly set the world on fire this season at all. But let’s not pretend we did so under the entire Shaun Wane tenure either. We won when we had to most of the time and we rarely blew teams away with scintillating rugby. I reckon Waney saw this season coming and decided to get out before it did. Apart from the super 8SP and play offs, last season also saw us play some awful rugby. Who can forget Hull KR away or Warrington in the Cup? Not be but I really wish I could!
Lam came in to steer the ship for one season before handing over the reins. He’s had rotten luck and tried to implement new structures in a side with literally no consistency. I’ve maintained throughout that we’ve seen glimpses of what he’s tried to change in attack and when we get it right, it’s electric! We just haven’t got it right consistently enough but I maintain that whilst it’s no excuse, the lack of consistency in the squad is some mitigation.
We’re talking about Adrian Lam. A man with a 15 year coaching apprenticeship under his belt. Coach of junior sides, PNG head coach, assistant coach at the reigning NRL & world champions and assistant coach of the Australia national side. That doesn’t happen if you’re no good.
Lam needs to bring in people he trusts to play in his structure. He needs to be given the resources to significantly upgrade the squad. We know that most of this squad had a phenomenal run in the play offs and GF last year but arguably the 2 best players in that squad have gone and the others have aged. The simple truth is, some (quite a few) of our 1st 17 are just not good enough and I honestly believe it wouldn’t matter who was coaching them, they’d struggle. The teams around us have significantly strengthened, Saints & Warrington especially but not exclusively.
I genuinely, hand on heart believe that resources is a bigger issue than Lam’s coaching.

The title of this thread "Deluded Lenagan" must be the daftest ever on this board.
He's owned the club 12 years from 2008 and appointed his first coach, McGuire, in 2010. Since then with McGuire and Wane as head coaches we've been in countless finals winning most of them.
He's transformed the club's finances from being a financial car crash in DW's ownership to being manageable. He has put in £ms of his own money in recent years and has/is now wisely limiting spending.
When comparing the 12 years of IL's ownership from DW's there's no comparison. We are massively better off now with IL running the place.
As for him saying Lam is favourite it's hardly surprising. He can hardly say anything else. He said it prior to the Catalan game so he may be reconsidering it.
Lam will be judged on results and performances. After the Wire Cup loss most of us felt it was a good team performance and with a different VR decision we would have won the game. The Barcelona shambles left us all disappointed. I'm sure none more so than all at the club.
We now have four away games where Lam will be judged very critically I'd imagine.
After all, IL said Lam was favourite. That is a very long way from saying he's got the job.
As for IL being "deluded", how daft can it get?

You are Ian Lenagan and I claim my five pounds.

British/Superleague- Chris Chester, Daryl Powell, Brian McDermott.

Overseas untested - Jason Demetriou

Overseas Experienced - Justin Morgan, Shane Flanagan.

Take your pick from the coaches, they’re just off the top of my head and regards salary cap we have Hamlins and Gansons wage to go at not to mention a marquee spot.

The Lam audition certainly isn’t going great but I’m in the camp that says without proper investment it will not matter who coaches us. I’ve said get Wane back but with this group of players (and minus at least Williams) he would still only squeeze a few extra wins out of us and maybe scrape top five.

No proper investment and we’re going nowhere other then sitting somewhere between 5th at best and down near the bottom at worst.

What do you mean, 'only'? That would be fantastic!

Sorry "Post" I'm not IL and you've lost your five pounds.

As for coaches, Wigan wouldn't be short of applicants if a vacancy occurred.
As for cap space. As has been said, Hamlin and Ganson have gone so their salaries are available.
As for cap space for 2020, Williams going won't give much cap space but will create space on the accounts. There will be departures, the names are not known to us but the club know and can budget accordingly.
We could have a long wait for announcements as some players don't want their leaving made known until after the end of the season. Some clubs don't want fans to know which of their players are leaving too.

And out of that lot the only one that could/would come in mid season is Flanagan. Marquee spot is irrelevant unless we have the £150k cap space to spend in the first place. I’m only guessing but Hamlin & Ganson would give us 40 - 50k at best when you take into account what they have already been paid this season.

Spot on

I wouldn’t take any of these above Lam.

The club has treated the loyal support with disdain for about 6 years now - the result being that the crowds have dropped by around 4,000 per game.

The bloke is supposedly a shrewd businessman. No shrewd businessman who wants to stay in business repeatedly p!sses off his customers to the extent that they don't buy his product.

Correct on all accounts

Utter rubbish. He’s the man that brought us from relegation candidates to serial finalists, grand final winners, world champions and challenge cup winners. Your comment - loyal supporters who have dropped by 4000 doesn’t seem very loyal does it?
Our chairman has pumped millions of his own money into the club year after year. He must see comments like this and wonder why the hell he bothers!

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IL has made some major errors of late so he isn't immune from criticism. I'm not anti IL but the moment the team, the back room staff, just the general demeanour of the club is in free fall.
I can't see a win in the near future and genuinely believe that we are in a relegation battle that we are more than capable of calling flat on our face. After the debacle of Barcelona which bright spark at the club thought the time was right for IL to state that Lam is favourite for the coaching job?

I said "last 6 years".

2012: 16045
2013: 14544
2014: 14102
2015: 13362
2016: 13499
2017: 13668
2018: 11708

Suggests that over 4,000 have voted with their feet.

For a club that pays minimal cost for a stadium, has sold Tompkins x2 & Bateman to NRL clubs & RU, has been involved in most of the Grand Finals, two challenge cup finals, a few WCC's etc, its pretty shocking that they operate at a loss.