We were dicked, as you so eloquently put it, by Catalan at home and were awful. Do you not think we were awful? Catalan also had people out. There were many matches last year were these boards were full of criticism of the team and Maguire. With your previous couple of replies I seriously think you struggle to grasp simple English and I dont know why why are trying to say things that I havent. You also obsessed with if I have played the game or not like you are some sort of expert, which you are plainly not, and i have to say your condescending attitude is more than a little pathetic too.

I am not blaming anyone for anything as I do not go into a mass panic after one game of the season. I have never blamed the players for their condition either which you have accused me of again even though I corrected you in my last post. You obviously do not grasp English too well. It is people like you blaming Wane for one thing after another, not me. I am simply saying that I fail to see how if you feel they are unfit then dont you think that instead of the very simplistic blame the coach routine that you should be aiming your flack at the conditioner, it isnt exactly rocket science. If You accuse players of being unwilling then why not blame the players? It was not Wane who dropped balls, fluffed moves, missed easy tackles, had an awful kicking game etc. Likewise we have played no less friendly matches with a full strength team than previous seasons. Reading the reactions on here you would have thought we would have lost our first game by 60 points.

The over-reaction to it has been incredible.

God help us all if Leeds win on Saturday.

It's a typical Wiganer reaction I'm afraid to say. We're all doomed, Wane out, bloody rubbish Wigan etc etc.

If we were to beat Leeds on Saturday and I was Kris Radlinski, I'd walk into the SS bar after the game stick my fingers up and say "not slagging me off now are you" and walk out. Some of the stick he was getting from so called fans of the sport (and therefore should understand it slightly better) was ridiculous.

Wane is accountable....

Its not helped with everybody expecting an easy win with Hudds injuries, i think the players thought it would be easy too. Add to that people havent had any proper rugby to watch for months and it being the start of a new era and some people have jumped all over it. I get the feeling some of our fans enjoy it when things go wrong so they can have a good moan.

I didnt go in the SS bar, were people really giving Radlinski some grief? That is bang out of order.

I didnt expect an easy win, I just expected to see more pace, attacking play and more enthusiasm. All things Wane has been saying during the off season.

Why are you attaching so much significance to Wane talking up the team's chances during the off-season?

Would you expect any coach to be downbeat when asked what his hopes are for the coming season? How would you have felt if Wane had said that he felt we were only good enough for mid-table? Even if he genuinely believed that, would you have expected him to say it?

It wasnt the expectations it was what he was working on and the changes he is making to the team, training and game play.

I would say it's ALL about the expectation with some Wigan fans. It clouds their judgement in a big way, as this thread has exemplified.

and why is that wrong?

I didnt expect wigan to destroy huddersfield, history told me that wouldnt happen, however i did expect to see a wigan team compete for the 80 mins.

the score flattered wigan, huddersfield were way better than us in so many ways, the team loked under prepared and uninterested.

case in point, we are 4 points down with 10 or so to go, we get a scrum on the oposition 25, and walk to it, eventaully sam started to run to it but still had to wait to get another 5 players with him to have the clock stopped. At that moment i knew we had lost, there was no enthusiasm in the ream, huddersfield knew they had the beating of us.

I dont expect to beat every team, but i do expect wigan to compete with every team, the fact that we only lost by 4 was more is irrelevant, every performance this year has been lethargic. I watched the friendly against huddersfield and it showed 2 things our lack of last tackle options and lack of attacking prowess.

we could see it against Hull KR, we could see it aginst shuddersfield and salford, all of these were before the season started, the high kick to the corner for pat is our last tackle option, when that fails we are spannered.

so why is it wrong to expect 17 professional players to look ineterested once a week?

This must be the first time in all my years of watching Wigan that I've ever known fans be upset by pre-season results (which were hardly a disaster - we beat Hull KR reasonably comfortably, against Huddersfield we mainly fielded kids, and at Salford, though poor, we still won; folk are talking as if we got slaughtered in every one of them).

Do you honestly not think you need to wait a couple of weeks to see how the team firms up in real matches? Sure, the first result was disappointing - and Wigan's performance was very poor - but some perspective is called for.

A bit of a late addition but here we go....

Team
I'm sorry bar Darryl Goulding and Jeff Lima - the team played woefully on Sunday. Luaki was appalling and I cannot see any legible reason why we signed him - although I was at first hopeful he would be good. He was garbage at Hull FC and is looking to be garbage for us.

Play
We seemed to lack any idea's in attack, almost as if Wane has thrown out all Madge's good input and gone back to amateur play. Hock passing the ball? Whats all that about? He CAN'T pass, just take it forward for crying out loud. I thought we lacked real direction and good ball distribution, how many passes went to ground or behind the man or even into touch?

Defence
Awful. No enthusiasm, no technique. It was just poor, hardly anyone took out the legs, preferring instead to go upper and try to muscle them to the ground. People dropping off tackles, poor technique, poor communication. MUST improve ASAP.

Fitness
Is it just me or did we look unfit? We looked absolutely massive units (muscle wise), some people have bulked up a lot but fitness wise we just looked unfit. IIRC we had a scrum on our own line in the first 20mins and Huddersfield ran to the scrum and more or less formed it and we were strolling, hands on hips, tired to the scrum position. Not acceptable.

I know its the first game of the season and all that but I for one expected ALOT better. I hope we have improved for Leeds this week - we'll get hammered if we don't - and put in a brilliant performance. I hope.

Unless things improve greatly, I can't see Wigan making the top 4. We didn't sign as well as we should of done or as well as other teams have and therefore are already facing a battle to regain the SL crown and retain the CC. We don't need to make things harder than it already will be.

COME ON WIGAN

Luaki is garbage after one game?

They were all garbage in that one game, weren't they?

I guess that means we should get rid of all of them.

We wont be far off if we judge every player off just one game!

It was a bad day at the office for the whole team bar one or two and i was as angry as the next guy afterwards but people are going too far now.

Luaki is garbage and Wane will never suceed after just one game?

I hope to god we win on Saturday or i cant imagine what people will say next.