The wheels didn't come off following the WCC match as we were looking like a pretty good, threatening team when we played Wire in March. A dodgy draw v Hudds and a narrow loss to Hull in the following weeks were arguably the start of our decline this season.

The dodgey draw was a decent result all things considered. We lost Lockers and Sutton within the 1st 8 minutes and we already had a few missing.

In fairness to Wane with that comment, there was a thread on here before the Cronulla game asking if winning that and nothing else would be deemed a success and a good few said yet.

As I said at the time, this side has too many quality players in it to be happy that just that win. It's been a poor season but as I've posted a few times, it's a sign of the club bs standing and ambition when you feel a poor season is becoming world champions, appearing in a cup final and winning your 8th academy title in 10 years.

If SW's future was to be decided by the video ref it would be a try on the field (winning the WCC) and inconclusive evidence to overrule the on field decision, and that's after watching the replays for about 15 minutes....

If you want to swap you can have the five Leigh coaches and we'll take Wane off your hands. Deal ?

Yeah I wasn't feeling too down about that one, Huddersfield have always been a tough team for us. It was Cas away in April when the wheels really came off for me. We had the opportunity to go top with a win, and 54-4 against the below side was shocking:

22. Morgan Escaré, 36. Tom Davies, 3. Anthony Gelling, 5. Joe Burgess, 35. Liam Marshall, 6. George Williams, 16. Sam Powell, 8. Frank-Paul Nuuausala, 9. Michael Mcilorum, 10. Ben Flower, 11. Joel Tomkins, 12. Liam Farrell, 13. Sean O’Loughlin

Interchange: 17. Taulima Tautai, 19. Ryan Sutton, 20. Willie Isa, 33. Josh Ganson

Oddly, the games since our season effectively ended have put a different perspective on our season for me. I had been telling myself that we are really the fourth best team, behind Cas, Leeds and Hull, and that injuries had cost us the 4th spot. After all, we beat Saints in 2 out of our 3 games against them and should have won the other one, but I think either of those teams would have stuck 40 past us last night, and Wakefield demolished us last week, and beat us 2 out of 3 games during the season. Maybe 6th is an accurate position of where we have fallen to.

Stick on the fact that Wire were inexplicably awful for most of the season then escaping the middle 8's was in hindsight a good result, we could easily be in a terrible spot right now.

Yeah I suppose Leeds and Wire have shown that you can easily get dragged down there, but as disappointing as the season has been, I do think we were better than Salford, Huddersfield etc, and would have been a class above the rest in the middle 8s with the side we had available (except maybe Wire). Disappointing that we are talking this way after our reserves managed to win the Grand Final last year! I expected a big year from Cas (not this big!) but thought we would have the Grand Final sewn up and maybe the treble this year to be honest having swapped Smith for Leuluai, and was even more confident after we won the WCC.

We seem to have developed a mental block when it comes to Castleford, same as Leeds. Hoping for a Hull win tonight or the GF will be over after 10 mins.

I was never Treble confident, but with adding what appeared to be a fully fit Joe Burgess & Tommy Leuluai with the addition of a fully rehab'd Sam Tomkins I genuinely believed we would be alot better that the year previous. We just capitulated and it cannot simply be put down to injuries.

Long winded, but stick with me...

I've looked back over the season..we died off round 6, 7 and 8....losing to Hull (20-22) at home, Leeds away week after (26-1icon_cool.gif the Cas beat us at home (10-27). After that we became very, very poor...we only beat a poor Saints in round 9 (29-1icon_cool.gif because they went down to 12, no denying they were up for that game and it would of been alot closer had Amor stayed on...scraped past Wakey next (10-16) in a Easter Monday snooze-fest that neither side performed in...and only finally beat a resilient Catalans (42-22) after giving away 20 points and going in losing at half time....then the 8 game winless streak which doesn't need addressing as I am sure injuries and morale we difficult to manage, however, a few of these games could of been won had we held out and done the basics right....two turgid wins and a shockingly bad loss to a poor Warrington at home. We then beat a weak (generous) Leeds to make the super 8s...a score settled in the first week of the Super 8s when they schooled us (32-16) with a full compliment. One stand out performances away at Saints and then lucky at Hull, if they had stayed at full capacity, we would of lost and I say that because as proven when an 80% fit Cas turned up at the DW they exposed us to all but end our season.

No one can say we are not loyal as fans, because I have read many a post on here from fans actually trying to be positives, as a set of fans we were given 1/4's worth of a season, the rest was poor by any clubs standard and the underlying problem is we only avoided been fully exposed this year because for whatever reason Warrington and Huddersfield had equally as bad seasons.

With Toronto, Toulouse and potentially Catalans/Leigh all vying to come up next year, the Qualifiers in 2018 will be electric...I for one bloody hope we are not involved but if Huddersfield & Warrington improve which is likely, especially the latter with a new coach and Salford & Wakey recruit well we will really, really struggle.

I think what's interesting about this is that people have stopped talking about the injuries as if that was a kind of catch-all explanation for Wigan's worst season since Brian Noble.

Sure, we had injuries and they disrupted the middle part of the campaign, but most people posting on here now are being very, very honest about the fact that we've continued to be just as terrible even with a full complement of players. In fact, it's almost as if we've realised that this is really quite serious and that hiding behind excuses will do more damage than good.

Yeah it's hard to make excuses anymore when we've still been pretty dire with a very strong (on paper) team out since June. However we would've 100 per cent be in the semis if it wasn't for injuries. There's no chance we go 8 games without a win with a fitter squad.

Interesting....something many on here have been calling for. www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby-l ... -1-8780924

Interesting....something many on here have been calling for. www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby-l ... -1-8780924