I agree completely on Thompson - when at LF he is the extra "middle" that was, and still is to some extent, a commonly used strategy. Walters isn't a LF full stop. If we're going to develop our attack further (which we should be doing, as standing still is basically going backwards) we need to be using the LF as an extra pivot as we did very well with Smithies. That part of his game was massively underrated. I'm not for a minute claiming he was anything like a prime Farrell or O'Loughlin, but he was hands down the best LF in Super League for this last season, as well as being the best all round LF IMO.

We've all known it was coming but Smithies will be a loss. We've strengthened well so far but it's also true to say we've just lost the best LF in the comp. Along with KPP, that's 2 big contributers to how well we've gone this year.

I think you can only judge a year of recruitment when you compare the ins and the outs. Wigan have done the best they can and brought in some good players but you could make a case that none of the replacements for Smithies, KPP or King are upgrades. Leeming for Powell possibly is. Again it isn't a criticism of Wigan - just the reality of how tough it is with limited players available and the obvious lure of the NRL.

On the positive side there are lots of reasons to think that there is more improvement to come from the existing squad. French and Smith will hopefully thrive after an offseason of practice and we have a number of players who have developed their game this year and should continue to do so (e.g. Brad O'Neill, Kaide Ellis, Junior Nsemba etc).

Hopefully the lad smashes it. Other fans will write him off but the lad has a lot of grit I think he’ll do well. We’ve got good cover for LF. I really hope we can go into future seasons not loosing our youngsters. It seems like every season rolls round we end up loosing another young lad. I imagine it will be Nsemba next

Everyone raving about our recruitment but I think we could be worse,

King, Smithies and KPP were on fire especially in the last 10 games of the year.

The club have done the best as they can getting

Keighran, Thompson and Walters to replace but on current form I’d say they are 3 downgrades.

Leeming hopefully will be better the Powell. Can’t forget Dupree being an enormous upgrade on Singleton to be fair.

Chan and Eseh are depth projects.

I agree to a certain extent. I'm not sure they're necessarily downgrades and we won't know for sure until we see them in the Wigan environment, culture and team.

I think it fair to say a prime form Thompson, if that's what we get, is an upgrade on practically any forward in Superleague and I would definitely include Smithies in that. Whether we get the prime version is where the uncertainty comes in. Leeming/O'Neil should be an upgrade on O'Neil/Powell if only from the point of difference. Walters for KPP could go either way. At the time of writing I'd consider it a slight downgrade but, as I say, that's from a point of view of only having seen him in a poor Leeds team rather than in a successful Wigan one. King/Keighran is a more complex one as King's style of play really suited us. However Keighran was in many journalist's dream team this season and is undoubtedly the bigger attacking threat. I think he has every chance of being better than King but, again, at the time of writing it is probably even at best.

Dupree is a massive upgrade on Singleton.

Eseh and Chan are excellent additions to the squad and far more likely to actually play than Silva.

The main upgrades as I see it (notwithstanding any further additions) will come from the younger players. Nsemba and Hill will be be even better for their game time this year and being part of a championship winning side. Eckersley has looked the real deal for a while and will add even more pace to our already pacey backline (pace was not something you'd attribute to King to be fair). Same for Douglas. Most of all, many of our young, if experienced, props seem to have come of age and I feel will really start to come into their own. Havard has been the best young prop in the comp for a while but Byrne also started to show what he's capable of prior to his injury. The increased competition for places should amplify that growth.

I think we're in a good place generally but the 3 mentioned above will certainly be a loss we need to cover.

The recruitment could go either way but where I have great hope in terms of improvement is that guys like Havard, Smith, Byrne, O’Neill etc have another year under their belts and now have confidence gained from being part of a championship winning season and in the case of Smith, from being England best player in his first international series. I also look at the fact we won that Grand Final minus Cooper, Byrne and a fit Havard, as well as then playing a guy in Mago who doesn’t do long minutes and we can surely only improve in that area of the field, so the recruitment might not be the be all and end all regardless.

I agree NK. The major improvements will come from our existing younger players rather than from the new signings although I do feel there will be improvements there too, especially if we get the best of Thompson and Leeming.

The biggest improvement that our recruitment has made though is the sheer number of options in the forwards. We could literally field 3 prop rotations that would be competitive at SL level. We won the comp with effectively half of our prop options missing for the majority of last season, which was a great achievement to be sure. However, barring an injury/suspension crisis of epic proportions, that shouldn't happen this time around.

I think it will be hard to say if we'll be a "better" side than this year. What we'll certainly be is a different side, of that I have no doubt.

Leeming, Kerighan and Thompson are different to Powell, King and Smithies. I'm not gonna say they are better, or worse - they are just different. As such, the way we play will be different. Add in French getting the 6 jersey and running that through preseason and you can see it will be different.

Next year does not concern me. Can Walters get to the level of KPP? Can Keighran get to the level of King? Can Thompson get to the level of Smithies? Easily. In the Wigan setup, with the young lads NickyKiss has mentioned having a confidence boosting year under their belts - we'll go really well next year and I feel we will be favorites to add to the 125 trophies we've won as a club...

My concern is 2025. Harry Smith, Bevan French and Jai Field all out of contract in 2024. Field and French are exceptional players for us, but I tell you - securing Harry Smith to a long term contract could be the most important bit of business we do if we are to have sustained success over the next few years. He is the best in play kicker in the competition. He was outstanding in that run to the Grand Final and his kicking game lays the platform for our forwards to play on the front foot and our backs to play in good field position.

Field and French are our Best players

Harry Smith is our most influential

Spot on, need to tie him up.

Could be our next captain.

Correct

I still think Field played within himself this year too as he was coming back from a 2nd bad hamstring injury and I think he never really pushed himself in terms of acceleration compared to last year. Saying that he was our best attacking player with and without the ball.

Get a proper pre-season and I think we'll see an even better version next year - along with a better version of French with a half season at 6 under his belt. Lots of reasons to be optimistic about next year. Looking forward to seeing Walters and his extra offload threat out wide. Field will be on his shoulder every time he takes the ball up.

Being reported that Salford are the front runners to sign Shorrocks, think that would be a good move for all.