I get what you're saying but teams still need attacking moves for something to fall back on, call it a plan A. I'd also like to see teams play off the cuff to at certain points of the game, I enjoy the free play ruling as this allows that to happen.

Maybe incorporate the free play to more offences other than knock on.

Off the cuff rugby does have its risks (more mistakes likely) and as we are quite a structured team it stands out that we have only a couple of players that can play to this rule. Sam Tomkins & Gelling.

Gelling has been a breath of fresh air with some of his rugby (nobody knows what he's doing including him). Sometimes he's created or scored tries from it, other times he's bombed as many or put out errors in our own twenty.

We do need these types of players though as we look to them when we go into the final stages of a match losing by a couple. Gelling to Manfredi looping pass to win it against Salford springs to mind!

At times the attack looked as clueless last season including in the GF where we let Leeds off the hook. It didn't look good this season before the injuries kicked in.

Unless Sam T is the answer I don't think there is much evidence to suggest it will function much better when the players return.

The other thing is the club has known how long the players injured are out for and for most it is more than short term yet is trying to play the same attack with players who can't execute it and/or are unfamiliar with each other.

For this attack to work it must be drilled an executed to perfection. Even before you ask the question is our current best first 17 capable of doing this (I don't think it is) it's not reasonable to expect that to occur with the disruption to the side, yet we still keep sticking to plan A.

Our attack was fine for the majority of last year. It will be better this year IMO once Tomkins and co are back and we're settled because Tomkins is better then Bowen and far more suited to put style of play (one which was pretty much adopted to fit in around him). We've got Gelling and Manfredi to come back who've been devastating already and will link up superbly with Tomkins. We have George Williams who's a year older and again is another who'll benefit from playing with Tomkins (and will actually benefit from the rest he's getting) and put back row will be outstanding when all the options are back in there.

Optimistic? Maybe but I don't see too many better 17's knocking about then the one we should be able to get on the field in a month or so's time.

As Wane would say 'I'm not stressed'.

Me either, and it's a great time for the "Misery Mafia", so, happiness all around..

I usually agree with you Nicky but this time I'm nowhere near as optimistic as yourself.
I thought we were poor and boring last season and the early part of this season I thought we had gone even worse after the departure of our only strike players namely Bowen and Burgess.
ST will have to play his A game from match 1 and continue to do so for every game he plays to give us even an inkling of a stepped change.
I personally can't believe that we do any work with the ball. We can't or won't pass, play so flat it's obvious we have no intention of trying to backup or look for offloads, offer zero options when we are in the opposition 20 metre zone other than a high kick to the wings. It's been the same way for a season and a half so unless ST works the oracle I just don't see where the improvement will come from.
I could cope with a conservative approach if we had a decent pack who could make good yards but apart from Farrell & Bateman(and he is very quiet this year) we have no forwards who can do the hard yards and none seem capable other than 15 minute cameos of dreary 5 yard gains and 3 men tackles then shuffle off because they look shattered or perhaps more accurately they were always going to be spelled after 15 minutes come what may. Tautai has improved significantly this year yet never does more than 20 minute stints - if he is in form why can't he complete a full 80 minutes?
I just find our whole demeanour and approach dreary, listless, predictable and joyless. I'm sick of hearing of toughness, middles and "the Wigan way". What the hell does the Wigan way mean? We will lose a few games over the next few weeks and these terms will be churned out repeatedly as if saying things will change everything.
I've thought this way for nearly 2 years so this isn't a reaction to a few recent losses or the absence of a few players. I've followed the club for nearly 50 years and have seen far far worse teams but I can't recall previously ever being bored rigid watching a game.
I sincerely hope your upbeat outlook is delivered and that I'm way over the top but I won't hold my breath.

I'm somewhere in between itchy and Nicky as usual. I'm not at all convinced that everything will be OK once we get players back, based on the fact that our attack has been patchy and poorly executed for a long time now. I see "Wigan-style plays" executed by NRL sides and still be very effective, But, and it's a big but, that's if executed perfectly, with each pass hitting the mark so players don't have to pause or stretch behind them to reach the ball. Of course having ST, Gells and Williams back will help enormously, but I can't help but also worry whether, after such a long time out, ST will ever be quite the same player again.

I'm convinced we'll be OK because of two things-

1-We have some fantastic talent to come back in

And

2-The leagues awful! I'm not say here pretending we've been perfect, in fact we've been ordinary but even with rafts of injuries, a faltering attacking and a 62-0 loss we're still only two points of top place.

Should we be happy with ending up being the best of a bad bunch? Maybe not but it'll be better then being middle of the road in a bad bunch. Maybe I'm deluded but get is fit and healthy and we're very capable of that IMO.

ST is a fantastic player but like yourself I am worried that his injury may have longer term consequences.
I remember when the club stated he may be back for Easter I smelled a rat because someone I know very closely linked with the club advised me of the severity of the injury and that he would not be back before the end of May and that date was quite optimistic.
If we don't get ST back before the start of the Super 8s or whatever they are called I genuinely think we could drop like a stone because we are that poor an attacking threat. We aren't the second lowest scoring team in the league for no reason.

One point that seems to disappeared is the fact we have no goal kicker. I can't think of any team winning major honours without a decent goal kicker yet we seem to think we can get by. This for me symptomatic of the current state of the club i.e. poor planning, rank bad PR re the HKR fixture, burying our head in the sand when we have obvious problems and contradictive statements eg when the Roosters gave us a good hiding we state we need a bigger pack then proceed to develop the smallest pack for many years.
I just see this as poor management and poor management always ends up on the shop floor.
To some I'm one of the "misery mafia" to me I'm just baffled as to how in a few short years we have gone from the most entertaining team in the competition to a team that has me questioning do I really want to keep watching something that presently gives me zero excitement and is a joyless 80 minutes every week.

I think the sheer low standard of the league will help Wigan and in the end Leeds out.

I too have doubts that ST will ever be the player he once was time will tell i suppose i can easily see him not starting a game this season if im honest.

People keep talking about the low standard of the league, but I was watching the Superleague Show last night, and although of course you're only seeing brief highlights, I saw tries scored from skillful attacking play by nearly every team in the SL which made me think, when was the last time I saw Wigan score like that? We appear so far behind the rest in attack it's painful. As just one example, Marc Sneyd's short kicking game produced a couple of lovely scores.

Tend to agree. It seems to be Wigan, Leeds and Saints the main culprits playing awful rugby at the moment. What is the common denominator? No idea tbh. Maybe the fact that the top clubs had to play 7 (or 9 in our case) intense games at the season while others played either Championship teams or simply dozed off as they had no chance of making the top 4. At that point they were surely looking to next season already. Just a theory.

In fact Huddersfield probably buck this trend as they are scoring a lot of points, just their defence is terrible.

Add Paul Anderson into the mix, and the common denominator could be dumb, unimaginative forwards as Head Coaches? Just a thought.

Interesting stats from Madge and Wane concerning league matches,


2010------ Under Madge------Played 27------Points scored------922.
2011---------"-------"-------------"--------27---------"-------"---------852.
2012---------"----Wane-----------"------27-------------"-------"---------[u=#0040FF994.[/u
2013---------"------"--------------"------27---------"-------"---------816.
2014---------"------"--------------"-------27---------"-------"---------834.
2015---------"------"--------------"-------[u=#FF004030[/u---------"-------"---------798.

Wigan fans have said that the Rugby played under Wane in his first season as head coach under Madge was some of the best Rugby played by Wigan for many years, the points scored that season highlights this.

Since then you can see that the points scored by the team have steadily decreased season by season culminating by the fall last season, even though they played 3 matches more.

There can be many explanations for this, under Madge Wigan had far better players and we saw the emergence of Sam who was a points machine himself.
That first season for Wane he was still very much under the influence of the framework Madge laid down, but since that Sam and Greene etc left and the calibre of players left and new ones brought in is not of the same standard as previous.

Therefore why didn't the Coach and especially the people over him right up to the owner not realise this, they seem content to think Wigan can still play the same structure with the players we have because we keep appearing in Grand Finals.
All it shows is that we scored almost 200 points less (with 3 matches more) than in Wanes 1st season, which goes to prove how bad the standard of S/L is at the moment.

This probably doesn't make much sense, but is a few stats for those that like to look at this type of thing.

This is why statistics frighten me!

I think the dire state of SL was highlighted when Saints won the Grand Final in 2014

Genuinely didn't know the stats but not surprised by them.
IL and KR are as culpable as SW in terms of squad building and IL in particular is the only one with the power to actually make changes. It's a difficult one because we must be generating less cash than previous seasons but have more expenditure hence why I understand the London adventure.
IL has been exceptionally quiet since the HKR debacle and I wonder what is going through his mind at the moment. I hope he realises that the current injury issues are just part of the issue and not the issue itself. He needs to decide if can afford 2 of the top 4 earners in SOL & MM to be available for less than 50% of game time as SOL can't play every game and MM seemingly can't play 80 minutes even when he is "fit". This for me is pretty critical and in a salary cap environment is bordering on ineptitude from a management perspective.
Season ticket sales and attendances will continue to drop even if results improve without improving the quality of the product.

The business model clearly works, the model for entertaining the fans clearly doesn't. We've lost quality and replaced it with youth, we haven't done it because they've stood out and forced their way in, it's because that is the plan and that's it. For the amount of kids we play, I find it crazy that we can't somehow fit in one or two quality overseas players to bring some flair and excitement to the team.

Although those stats may be true don't forget we managed to sign 3 of the best NRL players under Madge by fluke. Granted it was his connections that made the transfers happen but we did still have Tommy Leualai and Sam T. I agree that the recruitment needs a serious looking into but how do you replace players at SL level like Finch, Leualai, Tomkins and Hoffman? It's almost impossible. The best players in SL are on hefty contracts at their respective clubs so that cap stops us from getting them. Our policy is to bring youth through and if they do well increase their contracts and it uses up the cap but it doesn't stop them moving on unlike other clubs who manage to keep their assets.

In general i agree the policy is bad but i also think that the cap is the bigger factor in restricting that. There has been some good NRL players come over but for all the good ones there are about 5 crap ones. Leeds have spent a fortune on Galloway and Falloon etc and look where they are. We need a permanent scout in Australia and New Zealand if we don't already have one to pick up some possible loan players from the big sides or Queensland Cup players because signing players like Cronk, Slater and Inglis is just out of the question. Look at that young Brisbane and Roosters team came over here and destroyed us and Saints and now most of them don't get a game.

Catalans have managed to build a decent squad with quality imports.

Can't see Pat Richards, Inu, Todd Carney, Glenn Stewart and Willie Mason playing for peanuts. They have strength in depth and still manager to stay under the cap? Hmmmm?

I could have told them from my vantage point in Wiltshire that Galloway and Falloon weren't all that!

I've seen faster tax rebates than Galloway, looks like he's running in treacle.

We should have pulled out all the stops to sign Carney. Easily the best half-back in Super League.

you can't tell leeds fans anything, they'll swear black is white, just because. The amount of infighting on that board is crazy, everyone 'KNOWS' that they're correct.

*Chuckles* They range from level headed and sensible, to total nut-jobs...... Much like us really...