I'm glad Byrne is staying. He's got the potential to be a great forward as we all saw towards the back end of 2023 before his unfortunate injury. He's shown glimpses of it this year but he's struggled to hit those heights again. He seems to struggle with his consistency as one week he's one of the stand-out forwards, and then he becomes a liability the next week. If you compare this to Havard who is consistently good every week, it's hard to justify putting Byrne out there. The new tackle rules this year and the upcoming "below the shoulder" rules for 2025 have diminished one of the best aspects of his game: his aggressive tackling. He enters the tackle very upright, putting him at risk of conceding a penalty with the new rules.

So we are less than two weeks away from when out of contract players (at the end of the 2025 season) are allowed to be contacted by other clubs, 1st December I believe.

For Wigan these players are:

Liam Farrell,
Liam Byrne,
Jacob Douglas,
Sam Eseh (one-year extension option),
Willie Isa,
Adam Keighran

Of the above do we expect all (apart from probably Willie Isa) to sign an extension?

Keighran was superb the back end of last year but I imagine he is on good money after we pinched him from Catalans so I wouldn't be shocked if we let him go and gave Eckersley the 3 shirt. Douglas should be putting pressure on Miski this season if he is to be retained also

Plenty to weigh up with Keighran. He takes a quota spot and pretty good money you'd imagine and keeping him potentially holds back Eckersley but he's a good player, offers good utility value and is an excellent goal kicker. Ideal world stuff, you keep him and Eckersley has the challenge of taking his spot or even a wing spot ahead of Miski (same with Douglas trying to do that) but we'll see.

It's awkward with Keighran because, based off a little run forced by injury, I have a feeling he's a better six than he is a centre. Unfortunately for him, though, he's nowhere near a better a six than Bevan! So I think he gives us a good cover option should Bevan get injured, he brings great goal-kicking and runs good attacking lines, as well as being a strong tackler. His discipline seemed to improve over the season as well, which was letting him down early on. On the other hand, King-Miski was a far more potent attacking combination than Keighran-Miski, and I don't know how much that was down to Miski often being crocked last season. My feeling is that I don't see any urgent need to replace him but, if he were to move on at the end of this contract, I would be comfortable with that too.

Keighran really grew on me last year.

Think when he filled in a 6 his confidence grew and then performed better in the centres.

I trust the club to get these calls right.

His first two thirds of the season was ok but you wondered if he had that switch in him that these Wigan players all seem to have, where they seem to go in to this big game mode and everything goes through the roof (concentration, intensity, aggression etc) and he proved in that last third of the season and in particular in the last 6 weeks or so that he definitely does. It was his defence that really impressed me and how he controlled his aggression and did not make those silly errors where he was tipping players or catching them high. He was machine like in the Grand Final and made a tackle in the second half on our line that was almost up there with the French try.

Not really worth its own thread but I think this offseason Tyler Dupree has been given the Patrick Mago treatment post 2022. Completed a boot camp prior to pre season training even starts and he looks to be the only regular first team player back in this week (along with the younger lads).

I think he needed a kick up the ar$e tbh

Looking at the footage Eseh, Walters, Hill and Chan are all in too as is our project signing from Oldham.

Dupree volunteered.

Hmm, I'm pretty sure he was given a nudge as well!

Article on George Hirst in Wigan Today, I was under the impression he was going to be loaned back to Oldham next season but according to him he's set his sights on a first team debut in'25.
Good lad, that's the kind of mindset we need.

i think that was the plan when he was signed, however, sounds like he's got the right attitude if he's going to be setting his sights higher and making his 1st team debut