Our season hit rock bottom at that point. I nearly walked out of the ground in disgust.

We were poor against Salford, but surely Thursday was another world of bad? We hardly even got near their line to threaten it at all. On the few occasions we did, it was mostly down to some good kicks from Matty Smith. Certainly not, needless to say, from any go-forward from our pack.

Agree that Taylor was (and probably even still is) better than anything we have on offer at the moment.

I feel sorry for Williams. Seems to me that his trajectory this season has been: started off very shakey and nervous, but grew in confidence and was starting to really show his worth, but then the rest of the team seems to turn to ratshoite around him, and the lad is floundering a little again. And then, to add injury to insult, along comes Ashton Sims, puts in a couple of cheap shots, receives no sanction in return...

He probably will do, and rightly so, no need for that, its crossing the line.


Speaking of which who was it that took Harrison's knee out?

I actually was a bit embarrassed for out lads getting knocked about by Simms. I expected much more from him this season and I don't think he played all that well on Thursday but what he did do was bully out lads all over the park, especially Crosby.

I personally don't mind those tactics of roughhousing it's part of a Props job. I think maybe Wigan fans don't like it as we don't have anyone to dominate the opposition in that way anymore.

We possibly don't have the individuals in the prop department (Micky Mac and Bateman are ultra aggressive though) but as a collective we used to bully the likes of Saints all over the place. We'd also take it to Wire and last year at Magic we terrorised Leeds and had them rattled.

Fast forward to this year with a similar set of props and they're serving up that! Why? It makes me think there are some issues behind the scenes.

I was thinking about this complete lack of drive in our props this season due partly to the fact that they are told that they do not have to take the ball up as much in their own and their main job is in the opponents half and in defence.

This made me start thinking when did Wigan have a props that we were comfortable with, I came to the conclusion it was the 2011 season.

At Wembley in August that season we went with Coley, Lima, Mossop and Prescott at prop. Coley in his last 2/3 years at Wigan had developed into a very good prop, Lima was a prop who would take it up all day, Mossop was talked about as being Wigan's senior prop for the next 10 seasons (whatever happened) and Prescott was another who used to make great yards especially clearing his own twenty. Prescott had the potential to go on to be a great prop and there was no better sight than seeing him take the ball up with a bandaged forehead seeping blood (it seemed to happen every week), sadly his future as a R/L player was to come to a close early in his career due to a serious injurey
All different in their own way but all with the desire not to shirk any work when confronted with it.

I know they did the double a couple of seasons later but in my eyes the props that season did not match up to the 2011 season.

There is an issue behind the scenes but it should not be affecting the available players.
The news if I'm correct will be exceptionally poor news but could be worse if the results are actually across the entire club rather than an individual.
They could use it as an excuse but that would be poor attitude and that is something that SW is paid to sort out.
SW and KR are paid top money they just have to work harder over the next few months and pull things together. I'm not expecting anything spectacular just some pride.
This is probably make or brake for SW in the next few weeks therefore, I am expecting him to come out fighting rather than skulking around. That's easy for me to say but if he wants to remain head coach he needs to approach this head on. I personally wish him well I just hope he is up to it and that somewhere our forwards have got some bottle.

As Bateman got a bad injury, Wane said he was just resting him.

Watching Leeds last night the thought crossed my mind whether we could tempt Peacock to delay his retirement for 12 months and give us a season ala Quentin Pongia style. He is exactly the kind of leader that some of our younger props like Crosby and Sutton could only benefit from being around. Plus he is still playing longer minutes than our props.

Not a chance Peacock will come here, even if he does delay his retirement.

We need to be looking to the NRL for a pack leader, as Leeds and Wire have done and as Saints will do with Mosoe leaving.

Peacock will be Hull KR Director of rugby next season.

For me, part of the reason that Wigan were so hard in previous years to beat was your linespeed. This was probably a factor in your backs having to carry the ball so much - your forwards were setting your linespeed. You seem to have retained the part where your backs carry the ball so much, except the reason for that, your forwards setting an ultra fast linespeed, no longer occurs.



Given Peacock has already signed a contract to be Director of Rugby at Hull KR, no chance he would delay his retirement either.

I think for your pack leader, it could be worth looking to the Championship. Our pack leader is Walmsley, Warrington's is Hill. The problem I suppose is that you need a pack leader NOW, not to develop in 2 years.

Not sure if he is involved in the issue that will be announced but for the life of me couldn't see why he didn't play against Wire therefore, I assume that he is injured or in fact that he is part of the issue.

The direct quote from Wane was that Bateman was rested (due to playing more games than planned as he still needs building up) and with Gelling back Tomkins could go back to the pack giving the option of resting Bateman - I would take that at face value in the absence of any other official information.In fact I think the line was that Bateman is at around 90Kg and Wigan hoped to get him up to somewhere around 100Kg over time but this was being held back by having to play too many games due to injuries to other players - especially having to put Tomkins in the centres.

Really