or lack of it is the reason why we are struggling -no direct replacement for Green, no cover/strengthening in other key areas and reliance on kids week in & out was a risky strategy. We have lost key players each year since 2010 GF and not replaced them with quality to enable the youngsters to be bloodied gradually. More important than ever now that every game matters!

Jury is still out on a lot of our squad. Too early to properly tell. Most worrying thing for me though is that Wane has said himself that the reason we struggled at times last year was because we lacked any size in our forwards. I've seen it mentioned recently on social media that this was also apparently admitted at the fans forum. Apparently they thought the remedy to address this would be Tautai. So far our pack has been beaten for far too many minutes of the games. Admittedly, not all games, but for large spells of most. I think the general consensus on here is that Clubb has been brilliant, Sutton has stepped up but still a bit small, Tautai still needs to convince, Crosby has been very poor and Patrick should never be played at prop. Mossop is a welcome return (until he gets injured) and Flower will be like a new signing when he returns thankfully. With them admitting we lack size though, why wasn't more done to improve our props? So far this season, alongside goal kicking, our props are my biggest concern.

After seeing how we've played as a team so far this season I think it's impossible to say whether this year's recruitment has been good or not. The story of this season (preseason inlcuded) has been surrending possession and field position, inviting teams on to us and ultimately getting burned. We've had one or two very good individual performances but other than that pretty much the whole squad is making too many errors and are giving too many penalties away. It wouldn't matter if we had signed Todd Carney to replace Green if we're not giving him enough ball in good positions he wouldn't have any impact.

The whole Maguire/Wane ethos was brutal defence coupled with structured, almost error-free attacking play. We completed high and squeezed the life out of teams. Right now, we're a very easy team to play against just because of how much ball we give away with errors and field position with penalties. Until the concentration levels and ill-discipline are addressed I think it's very difficult to blame the performances on recruitment.

The age of the team is (and probably already has) a problem. There's a lack of experience and know how to see games out. We should be sitting on three wins out of three but we're dumb and immature.

I'm really worried by Wanes post match comments tbh. I was hoping it would be a full throttle slating of their discipline yet it was a 'well the efforts great but errors cost us' speech. The loss of concentration and silly errors are coming on the back of shocking discipline. They need to learn to walk away!

With the signing of Patrik, Tautai and Mossop, I was thinking your pack was going to be a real monster this year.
Will Flower make a big difference when he gets back?

Flower will help as he's probably been our best prop over the past couple of years. Mossop should also help if he can stay fit. C;ubb has come into form as well so its not all doom and gloom. Our pack has been very poor in these firsat few games though as well as pre-season. Crosby seems to have gone backwards. Sutton has been impresive for his age but there are centres in some teams who are bigger than him. Bateman is the same, he's a hard worker but still needs size. I'm honestly stil confused as to why we signed Patrick, he's been very poor.

Yes he has. On the other hand, he always seemed to impress whenever I watched Huddersfield.

Do we lack size? Yes.
Do we lack experience? Yes.
Is it better to be playing poorly now rather than later? Yes.
Will our squad improve as other players return? Yes.
Has the standard of Superleague deteriorated to a point where we could still prevail? Yes.

I do get what you are trying to say i.e. it's not the end of the world etc but imo it's not good enough.

If the rest of the SL is poor then that shouldn't mean it's ok to have a start like we have.

This isn't aimed at you but what's happened to Wigan wanting to be the best team in the world? From the top down to the fans we seem to have accepted that it can't happen and don't want to rock the apple cart. We seem to have lost the ambition of being different and better than the rest.

I don't think the Maguire and Wane ethoses are the same anymore. A lot of this: "how much ball we give away with errors and field position with penalties" occurs in our own half and a reason it does is we play risky RL that you should only be playing in the opposition half. Not when trying to clear your own line or get out of you own half. We wing the ball wide in our own 20m and 30m areas and so when the risky play fails as it does quite often not only have we given them the ball but well within scoring distance. I don't think there is a single NRL side that plays the game that way never mind Maguire's team yet we keep doing. Either its part of the plan or the players aren't listening to Wane because we keep doing it!

We've recruited ok for me.
Trouble is yesterday, out of our pack we were missing Crosby, Flower, Joel & Lockers. Moose was in his first game back, Sutton is 19 and starting every game, Tautai is a bench prop and started, C & L Farrell plus Bateman are collectively too small for a back row.
Added to that 14 penalties against and no wonder we lost!
Play that team against quality opposition with the same penalty count against and we'll get hammered.
Play a full or almost full squad against any opposition on dry grounds and have a low or very low pen count and we'll win and win well.

The jury is well and truly out on Wane. If we were losing against the top four in close contests and the bounce of the ball/lack of experience cost us then I can accept it if the performance is there. George Williams needs to grow into his role. Ryan Hampshire will need more game time. We are a young side and that is not a problem - it's exciting and advantageous when you look at the age of our rival sides.

However the problems we face are just basic. Disgraceful discipline. And "Waney" does not even mention it in his post match comments. He did not fix it at Widnes. He did not fix at Huddersfield. And he hasn't fixed it with Hull KR. And hasn't mentioned it in his post match comments. Will he fix it for Castleford? We are playing dumb at the moment. Do we have a dumb coach? Michael McIlorum needs to keep a cool head as a senior member of the side. Matty Smith has got to improve and take control of the side. Joel Tomkins as a senior player needs to lead by example. Our few senior players are letting us down badly at the moment.

Chris Chesters after match comments were not at all surprising. He said he knew they could get under our skin and put us off our game. It worked. We are a team of hot heads and no-one is taking control. Castleford will do the same next week. Will Wane address this? If he doesn't it will just keep happening.

Fix the discipline and that will fix our game management. Keep composed and build pressure and we will get back to winning games comfortably/performances will improve.

Can Wane put it right for next week?

It's interesting to see you've mentioned Joel as needing to stand up. For me his best outing for Wigan since he returned to us was last week vs Brisbane. He was causing some real problems that night and proved he's an out and out 2nd rower and a very good one at that.

I think it's obvious that we've gone into this season with him as our back up centre option and it's another example of poor planning. We all knew that Lockers wouldn't be available for long chunks of the year so why have they planned to have arguably our 2nd best back rower as cover for another position? When you then factor in Sarginson has been injured all pre season it seems even more baffling.

Joel should have been ring-fenced for the pack as we know he'll be needed more than ever during the weeks Lockers is missing.

You've got Cas next? They're on the bring of pulling things together. Could be a tough one.

Well, I've seen NRL teams do it, but surely the point is, it should be an occasional tactic, not tried too often, just enough to keep defences guessing.

As for aiming to best in the world, we won't attract the best players, of any nationality, until the comp itself is stronger.