It goes without saying but I genuinely hope he does and leaves a few of us with egg on our faces. My better judgement says no though. I will be delighted to say I’m wrong

Trust you and your mate to respond.

Good stuff.

Not welcome anyway with an attitude like that.

Why?

People are free to spend their hard-earned how they choose. And people are free to argue the toss about it on the internet or face to face. Probably best to not be drawing big conclusions from it, though.

Assuming French and Hardaker don't decide to head off last minute is everyone satisfied with the playing roster for next season?

French
Miski, Bibby, Hardaker, Marshall
Cust, Field
Singleton, Powell, Mago
Farrell, Bateman
Partington

Smith, Hanley, Thornley, Halsall,
Ellis, Isa, Smithies, Pearce-Paul, Leulaui, Byrne, Havard, Shorrocks, O'Neill, McDonnell.

Apologies if anyone missed.

Is this squad capable of the playoffs/silverware, bearing in mind other teams have improved too (Saints, Catalans, Wire, Hull FC and Leeds).

Add in to the effect of a new coaching team which includes SW.

Of course the usual suspects on the Virtual Terrace have us down as low as fifth/sixth on the predictions thread.

The new coaching team will be worth its weight in gold for me. Get that extra 10% from players in big games and we are more than capable as we showed sparingly under Lam.

Kaide Ellis was missed in your team - I imagine he will start either at prop or loose forward.

I still would say its the joint 4th best squad on paper, probably on a par with Warrington. Saints, Catalans and Leeds all have superior squads IMO.

Far too much uncertainty and unanswered questions with Wigan to predict with any confidence. Will Bevan be back, when will he be back, what sort of shape is he in? How will Miski adapt to SL from the Championship? Will Zak get through the year OK now that he's moved to Yorkshire? Is Bibby really a centre? Can Field recover OK from a bad injury? How will the NRL signings settle in? Is it one year too far for Tommy? Can some of the younger players break out of their period of stagnation and push on with more senior players around them? And the big one of course is how the new coaching team work out.

A bit of entertainment next year and I'll be happy

I think that's about right to be honest - I look at the backs and halves and you can convince yourself it looks exciting or that it could be a flop. It's certainly far from settled / established and with a new coaching team on top of that, who knows?

I think Wigan will finish 3rd at best, 5th at worse but (injuries aside) should in theory be a much tougher prospect come the back end of the season than the start,

The big difference will hopefully be on the coaching front. If Peet (with help from the other guys) can get more from each player, then we’ll hopefully move forward not backwards. A lot will depend on Cust and how well he can come in and take on Hastings role. I’ve said before, I think the only big loss for us is Hastings, so if Cust can come in and fill that gap to a decent level, I think we’re going to be stronger elsewhere. I just think Kaide Ellis is missed out from that side above and he may well take that 13 spot ahead of Partington or a prop spot.

One big worry with us trying to improve is that a number of other sides should improve also. Saints and Catalans won’t be going anywhere, Warrington should take a couple of steps forward under Powell and then the big two movers for me could be Leeds and Huddersfield. I saw Leeds squad numbers earlier and that first 13/17 looks really strong. Huddersfield should kick on as well with a really exciting 1,6 and 7 of Pryce, Lolohea and Fages. Add in the two Hull clubs looking stronger as well and it won’t be an easy task for us.

Just realised this

Except for Lam and Winder, the only difference to the coaching team is Lee Briers.

They sure will have a lot to prove to get back the confidence of those supporters who have been used to better success than what has been seen since the departure of Sean Wane as Head Coach!

Keep telling yourself that