You make excellent points.
Tomkins is no centre, so play Marsh. Rest the HOff against Wakey & Bradford play Joel & Tuson. Let tehm get some game time

If Finch gets injured then we play Sam, at that point you may have to play charnley at FB or another youngster.
Goulding scored as many tries as Pat last year so why drop him? Is it because Joel doesn't give him the assurance in defence or anythin to feed from in attack ? (see the Goulding thread)
We need to address the lack strength and depth in the quarters & the salary cap, and everyone is supporting the Ozzie signings Its mind bogglin.
We need to compete with Saints and stick to the policy on local talent.

Its a good discussion, but doesn't if feel that much better when a wiganer scores the winner against the Saints?

How many of Saints local talent are going to make it as international class? Lomax and ...the rest are extremely questionable. They also have a dearth of emerging talent and quality in the forwards, the likes of Ashurst, Dixon, Macgennis, etc, are barely SL quality, nevermind the foundation for SL success. We had superior forward potential in the likes of Lockers, Hock and Hansen in our poor period and still struggled. I fail to see how Saints are the current benchmark to follow.


It does, but not at the expense of a Wiganer scoring in a heavy defeat to Saints due to the lack of experience and quality, and an unwillingness to look for talent and experience beyond the Wigan Borough boundary.

We used to do that and we went bankrupt

I meant the best team out of our squad and within our budget and restrictions. We should put out the best team possible, anything else should come second.

I am not being funny but rugby is not a sentimental game. Players are in the squad on merit, Carmont has been the best centre in SL this season and Charnley has been exceptional and has twice the potential goulding has.

The 3 signings have been brilliant, hoffman has added another dimention to our second row and is streets ahead of both farrell and tuson, lima has been class and finch has settled into the team very well and has produced some excellent performances over the last 2 months.

The players ahead of the young talent are better players, I would rather trust the coaches judgement than yours personally but hey if we won the super league this year with sam,joel,charnley,mcillorum,hansen,lockers,mossop,hock,prescott all in the run on squad weve not done bad for a team who apparently dont use local talent.

Is this a wind up?

I'm going to eat humble pie over finch i thought he was cack but this last month he's been nothing short of outstanding

I'm starting to speculate which Stains or Dire troll Mash Butty is.

Far too many people were too quick to judge him imo. Showing his class now though.

My thoughts exactly.

I can't believe what I've read on this thread? Finch is really coming good and reminds me of when Pat first came. An indifferent start but worth his weight in gold now!!
Marsh is not a bad player but for me he's nowhere near good enough for Wigan and doesn't have the potential to be. Simple fact is that Madge has been right in his selections for me. Hoff has been a brilliant player for us, Lima has really come good again after a dodgy start and Finch is really leading us round the park.
Joel is a 2nd rower but better in centre than marsh. Goulding has played over 100 games and is a very capable squad player. Charnley is setting that wing on fire! Out of all of them, I'd let marsh go elsewhere and keep the others.

Our overseas signings are not the standard that they once where, Finch Vs Barrett
We can't attract the likes of Trent Barrett anymore. Look at the 90s, we sold Longy and kept Henry Paul, at the time it made sense, Henry was the better player, but he left, Longy won a million trophies with the Saints. Longy is home grown, and may have shown Wigan the loyalty that he shown the saints. Henry wanted money, hence the move the union.
Signing Ozzies is a dangerous and expensive policy. Our young players should be allowed to make mistakes and learn.
We need to develop our youth, is this so difficult to understand?
I wish the fans would show more loyalty to the Wigan lads than the expensive Ozzies. Its lunacy