1) the club might have already appointed, just not electing to reveal it to the world just yet.
2) If they've not, I personally want to see them take the time to find the right man. Not rush just for the sake of making an appointment.

I hope that things are in hand because we can all see our rivals making good quality signings and we have still barely covered our outgoing players from earlier in the season. We are likely to see a rush for the door if the rumours have any veracity and need a plan. It is one thing to inherit a team but imagine having to take over a group made up of the leftovers and desperation buys whilst waiting to be blamed by the fans.

Obviously we all share the same concerns but it's probably worth remembering at this point that Maguire won the title with just 1 signing and Holbrook has done a similar job over at Saints this year. Signings aren't the be all and end all when a new coach comes in.

But did they find a full squad or one where a large number of senior and star players had just left and not been replaced? I cannot imagine that we have enough depth to cover the predicted exodus. Hopefully the lack of signings is a sign that some of the rumours are just paper talk. Did Maguire not bring three Aussies with him or am I getting confused again?

Madge only brought in Deacon in his first season and Mark Bitcon.

The Melbourne players joined in his second season.

I get some contracts will have been upgraded to take a portion of the salaries made available by player exits but when you look at the ins and out from the squad that ended last season to what we pretty much know will start next year, there surely has to be more in the pipeline-

Outs
Tierney
Gregson
C Farrell
Shelford
Gelling
McIlorum
FPN
J Tomkins
S Tomkins
Sutton
Bateman (rumoured)
Higginson, Forsyth, Bretherton, M Davies (rumoured)

Ins
Sarginson
Hamlin
Hankinson
Greenwood
Hardaker

The youngsters let go won’t count for much in cap terms but then nor will Hamlin or Hankinson coming in. We didn’t need to replace everyone on that list from players who left before this season and we won’t need to replace everyone who leaves this year due to players already here stepping up but even with a new coach hopefully freshening the place up, we still need at least two more (and probably three) IMO.

Judge it come 2019 I suppose but fingers crossed it’s in hand.

I'd tend to agree. The squad does seem a little short but, to be honest, I thought that post Noble. The Saints fans were bagging most of their squad last year too. It's a tough one to gauge until we see what a new coach can do with the likes of Williams, Hardakre and Hankinson, not to mention some of the younger lads coming through such as Kibula, Woods and Paisley. I'd hope for a couple more signings for sure but I'd hope we go for quality in areas the new coach feels most need rather than 'signings for signings sake'.

When you look at that, eight outs and four ins up to now this year, we've done o.k. and improved the league position by five places on the same time last year.

Five high earning forwards in that list so far replaced by one forward who may be on a fair wedge. The youngsters are still a couple of years off, or injured, so we realistically should be looking at one top class forward at the very least. If you add the likelyhood that SOL will only do limited minutes we should be looking at a couple. Also that list is the least worst case scenario so we could have a couple of other gaps to fill.

We certainly have gone ok but we could do better in 2019 with some wise investment. The squad will naturally be boosted by the experience the likes of Woods and Paisley have picked up and the returns of players like Manfredi, Burgess and Jack Wells (still to hear much from the club as to where he’s at). I’d be willing to shed a couple more players such as Escare and Tautai if it meant we could get some extra quality in positions we need for 2019.

+1

So who in the current Wigan setup is going to be the judge of how well the coaches do/did on this little test? Whoever it is must be seen as at least the equal of all the candidates on the technical side of the game otherwise how are they qualified to judge? It seems we already have a top coach lurking in our midst, the person judging this

Edwards would be my first choice but if not him having read about him since his name cropped up the Storm's assistant coach, O'Brien.

Giving either of these two such a test seems rather pointless to me and even rather patronising Their records for the on-field aspects of coaching speak for themselves surely and they are having to submit to a test on coaching judged by two people who have never coached a top level RL side.

Of course I'd expect them to be interviewed over the wider aspects of the coaching role, such as (but not limited to) how they organise training, attitude to youth development and even how they deal with the media etc but I see no value in two people who have no coaching experience trying to judge coaches off the back of a video critique of a single game. It seems rather amateurish to me. The coaches record should provide the evidence they need of technical competence. The club may as well have asked you and me to be the judges.

Totally agree with this. To critique a single game won’t tell you much at all. Evidence based structured interviews would tell them a whole lot more.
Describe your leadership style, give us an example of how you have dealt with poor performance from a junior / senior player / team, how will you develop youth, how will you improve standards and values...etc? The responses backed up with evidence and real examples should tell them all they need to know.