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-------------"-------"---------994.
2013---------"------"--------------"------27---------"-------"---------816.
2014---------"------"--------------"-------27---------"-------"---------834.
2015---------"------"--------------"-------30---------"-------"---------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!

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

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