Hampshire looking very very good in the halves.

I think that Wanes comment re Gildart not being quite ready for first team action was spot on. He had a torrid time against the much bigger Leigh centres. He needs to bulk up a bit before he is ready for the first team.

I thought Hampshire looked a lot better in the halves than at fullback. Budgie seems to have put some bulk on and Joel seemed to have improved a lot compared to last season. Of the new lads Tautai seemed to have a better game than Patrick.

Leigh played well and I particularly liked their scrum half (Reynolds??).

The only time Wigan played with any creativity in the half's was when Hampshire was at standoff and but for some wayward passes could have scored 2/3 trys during this period. Both Leigh centres caused there Wigan counterparts a lot of problems, they continually made yards of ground and got their wingers away.
I thought Logan went pretty well in when he came on, his service was far quicker that MM.

No problem at all with the Wigan TV broadcast, I put it on at 2-45 and it was rock solid right through the end.

Unconfired reports that Wigan actually had 14 players on the pitch for a full 10 minutes early 2 nd half , albeit when you introduced a lot of fringe players

Contacted Wigan TV about the problem with Apple devices and they are aware of the problem but thought they had solved it, working on it right now!

Positives
Joel looks to have lost his union weight.
Budgie has bulked up
Rocky looked like a worldbeater at stand off. Surely this has to be the season he properly gets a decent run in the first team.
Tautai was winning the collision and making ground
Bateman looked really determined and did a great job of getting in Moimoi's face.

Negatives
Rocky (high ball) and Tierney (positioning/speed) both at fault for Leigh tries. We may struggle defensively this season if Bowen's knees go.
Gildart looked out of depth. I thought that in the Academy games v Australia as well truthfully. Hopefully he can bulk up a bit this year.
Tautai gave the ball away at least three times with daft offloads. Limped off the pitch as well, does anyone know if he's alright?
I know the first friendly is basically a fitness exercise but I would have liked to have seen us be a bit smarter in attack and get back into the habit of winning.

I would agree with most of that. But I would add that Logan and Sutton looked to have improved from last year.

However it is very difficult to gauge from friendlies. Leigh weren't at their strongest either, so I thought they did well. Good to see Fuifui - thought we handled him excellently, especially Crosby and Sutton.

I kept getting Sutton and Greenwood mixed up to be honestso couldn't say. Yes we did a very good job on Moimoi, he'll cause Championship teams a lot of trouble next season if they can't afford him that amount of attention. Even if they do he could be a great decoy.

Crosby was excellent as well. Made the hard yards well against a robust Leigh pack. Given that we were missing Mossop, Flower, Clubb and O'loughlin from our first choice pack and had Tomkins in the centres I think the pack is looking very strong for the coming season.

Is the streaming of the games any good? Thinking about paying for the saints friendly as a southern based fan. . . . .

Great facility from Wigan, hats off to them.

Now they have the satellite company for the bandwidth the stream is very good but as a saints fan you might want to watch it in mute mode. The problem in the past has clearly been the bandwidth available at grounds but i think the saints game is a delayed broadcast so I'm not sure how delayed it is.

The Saints game is live, as is the Workington one.
I was at the Leigh game and that was streamed live with the recorded version up for viewing yesterday.

The Saints match is Live on Wigan TV using the same satellite broadcasting as at Leigh. Only difference this week is they'll be taking our wish fm commentary feed in which me and Joe will be joined by the Wish FM Saints commentary team of Chris Price and Mike Bennett as well, so for the Saints fan asking, the commentary will be quite neutral.

Streaming of the Leigh game was v. good. I only signed up prior to the Leigh match and was pleasantly surprised after reading mixed reviews of the streaming on various forums. Guess it also depends on your internet connection and computer. I believe there are problems with iPad though.

Thanks Bilko