Correct, the quality of players from outside the club has gone down since the time of Madge being the Coach

Even the website is out of date. We are now into the season and still we do not know who is playing in the Under 18 and 16 Academy and Womens teams.

Hardly surprising that sale of season tickets has not been very good!

I've got no complaints about Hastings. I think he's shown enough to demonstrate his quality, but he's on a hiding to nothing unless we beef up the pack.

Playing Smith or Shorrocks could have been an option, not both. On a small pitch we should have gone big, had at least Clarke involved, pushed Havard into the second row and maybe brought in Bullock/Kilner.

Either way, we are peeing into the wind until we get a new coach. I had a chat with my Widnes supporting mate before the season, he’d backed Wigan for the Grand Final, I said no chance because we have a good squad, we will finish top 3 but we won’t win a big game because we don’t have the coach.

In all seriousness I think I’d rather give Matty Peet the job. In fact I’d be putting the feelers out now for Jason Demetriou.

Although Smithies and Partington are decent players, the problem with both of them is they struggle to make metres, so them constantly playing together is hindering our go forward a lot and especially when you’ve got 10 minute Tony in the same team, Clark and Bullock in for Partington and Clubb next week imo

Whilst I don’t watch Wigan regularly (bar TV games), I did notice that Wigan seemed to have no set plays or patterns of play. You’ve got the likes of French and Hastings, and not once did they offer the threat of a set play together. I can’t remember seeing Hastings trying to find French once in the entire 80 minutes.
I’m just not sure what Wigan do in training, if there isn’t any evidence of combinations or pre-planned moves on game-day. That comes down to coaching.

That's one very expensive hobby.

In two weeks we play HullFC at home. For that Lam has to put out a big and experienced pack, anything less and we'll lose.

The best way to attempt a win surely is to play the big forwards v Toronto so they'll be more familiar than throwing out a never tried before team and squad v Hull.

G Burgess (if fit), Bullock, Flower, Byrne maybe Clarke should be props, Greenwood and Farrell back row with Lockers at 13.
Go with Smith at scrum half as we'll need his good kicking game and Hastings at 6.
Backs select themselves until Manfredi and Gildart are fit.

After the Cas selection shambles Lam needs to get his head around the fact that when it comes to RL forwards size matters. If he doesn't learn that soon it may be too late.

I noticed that time after time when we went to our right flank French would be coming round the back of our line but every time it went to Isa,we need to be missing Isa out and creating a 3 on 2 or is that wishful thinking

Correct, but at the same time, supporters and indeed shareholders are entitled to question some of the decisions being made by Lenagan and Radlinski like for example, the game at Millwall and the trip down under to Australia which resulted in financial losses to the club.

Financial decisions which may have something to the do with the poorer quality of some of the signings made from outside the club in the last couple of seasons or so compared to the seasons prior to the above two ventures taking place.

We spend a boat load of money on Hastings, also sign the player he formed a partnership with last season in Bibby and then split them to accommodate a young player. No. If we are to play another halfback with Hastings then they have to make way, not Hastings.

Having Bibby and Hastings together is more solid defensively because they trust each other, whereas Bibby was coming across Smith as Smith isn’t as good in defence as Hastings and Bibby was coming in trying to defend for him, we can’t have that, teams will just try and have their second rowers run all over Smith so that Bibby starts coming across then after a few times ping the ball out wide.

Can’t defend Bibby a single ounce for that missed tackle. He and Smith were soft and both got it horribly wrong and neither can be excused for such a poor attempt. Hankinson would have never missed that tackle.

I think the defence has been good so far this season. Wigan have only conceded three tries and two of those have been poor individual efforts. That should have been good enough to win both games.
It's the attack and poor discipline that has been most disappointing.
I always believe that defence is a team thing whereas tackling is an individual thing.