Well Shaun Wane has really gone up in my estimation...

Not that he was ever really down...

Not that my estimation is really worth anything - I don't suppose!

Yep awesome achievement from Shaun and the lads, a lot of people will have questioned things he may have done throughout the year and on a few occasions rightly so because we were maybe doing things out of the ordinary but by god he's got it right when it's really mattered hats off to him and every player that has been involved in the campaign. Ive got to mention a post from early on in the season when quite a few people were disagreeing with Shaun Wanes managerial prowess and saying that Tony Smith would make wigan world beaters if he was in charge, of course i disagreed with the nonsense you were all chirping and all ive got to say now is "were are you now????" (With a cheeky grin on my face) Tony smith got dominated tactically and his team got dominated skillfully and physically and that was all down to how Shaun and his backroom staff prepared our lads, bring on the roosters.

I don't remember anyone saying IL was trousering transfer fees as you put it.

Could you perhaps find the post?

Well done to Shaun Wane.

The game V Warrington was a real test of him as a coach and he passed with flying colours.

Also think you have to give a lot of credit to Harris as well.

Yes this was suggested.

It certainly was suggested, but I don't doubt the post has since been edited.. I wish now I had marked the rubbish and bile it's been my misfortune to read with regard to the management this season.. Some posters ought to be ashamed of themselves, acting like childish keyboard warriors.

I know what you meant, you know what you meant and so does everyone else!
Disguising it as you later did does not hide what you meant by it.

There you go

Enough said.

I just re-watched the Widnes away game from last year - where we rested pretty much everyone, and got turned over. Wane had a bit of a shaky start, I believe we lost to Huddersfield the first game in also. People were slating him and saying he was not up to standard for the Wigan job. I am so glad I was one of the many who stood by him, and were willing to give him the time he needed to flourish as a first team coach. I could not be more proud of Wane, he is a true club legend, and how nice is it to have the best coach in SL to be from Wigan? Well done Shaun, you deserve all the praise you get!

Perhaps we can see the end of the Wane knockers at last. Sick of people who pontificate about our previous aussie who lasted a year before he jumped ship and denigrate Wane's efforts. Well done indeed Shaun!!

I suppose I would consider myself a happy clapper. What annoyed me most about the criticism of SW last year was that with better luck last season we would have won Super League. And whilst he made mistakes in his first season some people didn't seem to want to give him a fair shot.

In all of the euphoria of the double we should recognise that winning the CC involved a large slice of luck. If that same luck had come SWs way last year he could have won the double then too!! In other words I think he had bad luck last year and good luck this - and it probably evened out.

I think that by and large the fans, and the media especially, ascribe too much into short term results. Looked at with 20/20 hindsight last year was a huge learning curve for SW and he deserves his success this year - but if the charge down from Matty's kick at 16-14 had gone to Warrington....

Scores on the doors and mr wane has the notches clear and deep
Great season for you and him well done

You do realise, don't you, that using terms like 'constantly happy brigade' is something of a faux pas in this context?

It's a bit of a give-away about where you stand. It also looks increasingly silly.

To start with, what does it actually mean? As you rightly point out, I expressed worry and disappointment with our mid-season results and because we were losing players. But I was still called a 'happy clapper' - presumably because I wasn't worried and upset enough (in other words, because I didn't agree with those calling down annihilation on the coach and the chairman).

In actual fact, the 'happy brigade', as you refer to them, don't really exist (if the club was being badly mismanaged - as it was under Whelan and Mo, EVERYONE would go to the barricades). But in reality, the phrase was coined not long after IL arrived by those who seemingly weren't prepared to give him a chance to rebuild the club, and was used to describe those who were - and it has continued to be used on and off for the same purpose ever since.

Yet even I, happy clapper that I am, didn't think anyone would be so ill-advised as to use it in the wake of IL and SW handing us our fourth major trophy in as many years. Congratulations on being the first - and only two days after it happened. That has to be a record.