yeh, that wasnt one of his best moments i'm afraid - and its the one reason why I dont class him as a "legend" and I dont think there should be a statue in his honour.

given half a chance, he would have been down the road to Union (with Radlinski, to be fair) - but he (they) took the cash and stayed - and SL as a whole benefited from having 2 players at the top of their game playing in the competition.

I simply cannot believe that nobody has noticed the fact that Melbourne Storm had a very similar leadership group with the likes of Scott Hill, Cam Smith, Kidwell etc for about 2 or 3 years before Cameron Smith emerged as the full time leader and captain of the side and club. This seems to have worked very well both in developing team responsibilty and in grooming Smith to do a superb job without having been thrust into a full time role at 21.

It would be good if one of the younger players was included in this scheme such as sam tomkins or harrison hansen to build for the future.

They weren't. They were mostly his coaches at senior level. That's what makes the whole 'it doesn't matter if he was captain at junior level' argument so monumentally ridiculous and ill informed. As an aside, he was captain at junior level as well. Go figure!

Well the old adage goes if it aint broke don't fix it. Well Maquire has decided to "fix" (change) the captaincy and in my opinion he will have done it for a reason and this message board is about speculating on what happens at the club isn't it, such as why the coach does what he does.

As you know one of the issues I have with Lockers captaincy is he is not a commanding figure on the pitch and puts his head down and gets on with his playing duties. I think that is a problem particularly when the chips are down so could very well be something that influenced Maquire to review the position in the first place.

That said I actually think the most likely reason for having five captains is what was posted by Wigan/Leeds/Andy way back in the thread and I quote "I'm taking this to mean Maguire has decided there isn't anyone in the team with the necessary leadership skills required to do the job on their own. " and that includes Lockers.

Of course W/L/A doesn't know that for sure either

Got to say though one of the things that has made me smile reading this thread is to see some of the Lockers fans playing down the role of captaincy now this has happened. It's suddenly not that important a job after all!

As to what is coming out of the club it includes Lockers agreeing to this change. I wonder what the situation would be if he had said no to the suggestion? My guess is it would have happened anyway so what was he going to do or say?

Dave

Fine but are these lads now pro RL players? The point I was making is the best young players end up as captains of junior sides because they are the best players and I expect several of our current first team squad have captained junior sides as well.

They can end up as captain for other reasons as well of course.....

Dave

Hang on. People use the fact he captained junior sides as proof he is a natural leader and all we are pointing out captaining junior and senior sides is like chalk and cheese.

If anything is ridiculous it is using his captaincy of junior sides to back up him having the job as a professional player. It's a completely different ball game.

As to Millward and the rest of his Wigan coaches choosing him as captain Maquire is the first with some balls to do something about it. One of the big problems we have had at this club recently is when a new coach arrived that was the only thing that changed! They carried on overseeing a club as described by Radlinski and nothing fundamental changed. The status quo was maintained and we went from one average season to the next.

I therefore see this captaincy move as just part of the long overdue revolution the club needed to give it the kick up the backside so desperately required.

Dave

Dave,
Would you agree that John Kear, Mike Gregory, Dennis Betts, Ian Millward, Brian Noble and Mike Maguire were all respected "senior coaches" and they picked O'Loughlin as a senior side captain?

Quote: arcticchris "I simply cannot believe that nobody has noticed the fact that Melbourne Storm had a very similar leadership group with the likes of Scott Hill, Cam Smith, Kidwell etc for about 2 or 3 years before Cameron Smith emerged as the full time leader and captain of the side and club. This seems to have worked very well both in developing team responsibilty and in grooming Smith to do a superb job without having been thrust into a full time role at 21. It would be good if one of the younger players was included in this scheme such as sam tomkins or harrison hansen to build for the future.'" They still have a leadership group www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 5818579631 paragraph 3

Quote: arcticchris "I simply cannot believe that nobody has noticed the fact that Melbourne Storm had a very similar leadership group with the likes of Scott Hill, Cam Smith, Kidwell etc for about 2 or 3 years before Cameron Smith emerged as the full time leader and captain of the side and club. This seems to have worked very well both in developing team responsibilty and in grooming Smith to do a superb job without having been thrust into a full time role at 21. It would be good if one of the younger players was included in this scheme such as sam tomkins or harrison hansen to build for the future.'" They still have a leadership group www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 5818579631 paragraph 3

No.

Since when was Milllward respected coach round here? I am still convinced he appointed Lockers for the headlines of appointing a young captain. A deliberately controversial move in my opinion that got the headlines he wanted.

Ditto Betts - when was he considered a respected coach? He was never officially head coach anyway. Scraping the barrel with this one aren't you?

Kear? Many don't rate him and would never want him as a Wigan coach but that wasn't as a club captain either. Strange how he becomes a respected coach because he appointed Lockers to England A or whatever it was having left us under a bit of a cloud I seem to recall.

Maquire - he is the one who has just asked O'Loughlin to do the job part time so this is not what I'd call a ringing endorsement.

Noble would stick with a dead duck if it had a number 1 through 17 on its back so I would never envisage such a change coming from him in a million years even if Lockers lost a leg. Loyalty first, common sense second should be Nobles motto. No recommendation IMO.

That leaves Mike Gregory in your list and it wasn't him who gave him the Wigan job so I assume you mean he chose him as captain for one of the junior England sides or similar which doesn't count IMO - it being a junior side as discussed previously. Gregory also wasn't a senior coach when he appointed Lockers as captain.

Dave

No He didn't.He gave Locky the choice.Locky chose this new way

All the coaches I named have worked with O'Loughlin on a full time basis, three have coached at representative level, yet we have a few "fans" who see him at most 30 times a season (and the ones who protesteth most probably don't see him that much) telling all and sundry that he is not a captain.

I beggars belief.

How many of our experts will be at Wakefield, Leigh and Warrington?

As I said previously, the five captain thing (one of whom is O'Loughlin) may or may not work. I am not losing any sleep over it.

Roll on Sunday.

Category A fans I reckon.

So, Dave, basically it comes down to the same as BK. You'll happily quote things that support your argument but when it doesn't, then it's obviously lies! Maguire has said that O'Loughlin had the choice to stay captain but liked and supported the idea of shared responsibility. He's reiterated it on several occasions, both in print and online. Yet you keep going on about 'having the balls to do something about it' etc. Basically you're choosing to ignore the facts as stated simply because it doesn't support your view and instead post on some unfounded speculation on your part as though it was fact. Frankly, that's poor, but hey! I suppose message boards have never been the place for balance or accuracy. As the saying goes; why let the facts get in the way of a good conspiricy theory, eh?

Dave, I've already posted so I won't say the same things over again. You can't be serious with this post though, surely!?!