Because he is a rugby god and doesn't need to play unless it mean something . He has played with injuries and you can only imagine its made some of them worse.

I see the level of debate on this thread is up there with the Wigan v Dire threads of 2/3 years ago when we last had a big cull.

Some people really should know better - grow up.

If you play Bowen you need two strike centres. He often offloads early when approaching the line as a second reciever giving the centre more ball. This only works if you have centres with strike, Thornley thrived from this, Goulding with no strike suffers without Sam drawing men in taking on the line.

Combine this with the problem area in defence (Smith to Goulding) Daz needs to be dropped.

Also move Smith out to the wing when defending tackles 1-4.

Logan surely is only in by default. Can't get a team playing on the front foot. We looked a completely different side when Williams took over at 9. The score board reflected this.

Agree he is a great player but he is getting a reputation to be that of a tampon, surely not good for team continuity? Saying that it was similar with Sam last year and you guys did alright!

Wire: 26
Warriors: 16

Att:12,500
MOM: Westwood

Can't see us winning this one I'm afraid.

He is genuinely injured and has been for the past 3 games for wigan and England. One thing you can't call O'loughlin is that he is soft and him being injured is hurting Wigan quite clearly.

Didnt call him soft.

Wire 30-12 Wigan

Just don't think we'll have enough in us tonight, with o'loughlin out along with McIlorum out, that's a lot lost in defence. Not to mention how bad our defence has been in the opening weeks. Hope I'm wrong though.

Attendance: 11,300

Don't know what all the negativity is about, you'll win this game.

Going straight from work, hopefully there is a cash turnstile in the Wigan end.

There usually is unless it's a sell out, it won't sell out.

The problem area in defence isn't Goulding, Smith or Charnley, it's the players inside them. Every try that Rovers made down that right hand side and every break came because Rovers had a massive overlap, with 7 or 8 players facing 4 or 5. There's very little the wide defenders can do in that situation. If they stick they'll be criticised for being hesitant, if they rush out they'll be accused of causing the try by rushing out. The players defending down the middle were pretty useless at spotting the fact that Rovers were adding numbers on the short side. That's one of the areas that O'Loughlin makes a big difference to, because he reads the defence, spots the movement of players and will direct players into the right positions or move himself across to cover. No one down the middle showed any organisation or managed to spot that the numbers were wrong and as a result the players out wide were made to look incompetent when really they were faced with an impossible task. That's without taking into account the fact that Rovers did have good shape in those attacking situations too which probably would have troubled a defence that was numbered up correctly.

they never looked like scoring even the intercept he was closing to dropping it. And we thought we had problems..

Worst I've seen Wire play against us in a very long time (I'd guess at ten years plus).

Rudderless.

Absolutely.

No idea how to get over the line.
Briers definitely a bigger loss than Sam
Can't believe how quiet their fans were. The wind had been well and truly taken out their sails.
Totally different experience to the last few years.
If a day out at DW is flat for us, it must be worse at HJ for Wire fans.
All Wigan players stood up today. Back on track!