Great crowd, great following from Wigan. Some fantastic rugby by Wigan, a great team to watch and lovely tries that simply needed applauding. Sam Tompkins is just a sublime player. I thought for 15 minutes we had a real go, we tried to ruffle a few feathers. Wigan were to good but we did our best to help them. We just do not seem to have enough brains in the side, we kept forcingthe pass and giving the ball to Wigan. Plenty of effort but not not enough understanding of how to play the game.
Thought Fox and Cockayne were good, Amor was our best forward.
My gripes for the day are : why when Kirmond was getting his backside handed to him on a plate did we not either swoop Lee Smith , who did a good job on Goulding, with him. Or why not take Kirmond of and put Walshaw in the centre. Walshaw and Trout again not given enough game time, both were doing a great job in defence but got so little game time. Trout had fire in his belly today. Leave them on the pitch. Why do we keep persisting with Wood, he is just not good enough.

In the 1st half silly errors cost us 20 points and bad defending let them in ok the ref did us no favours.Then in the 2nd half we stood back and watched them instead of getting among them.Talk about making a good side look world beaters they had an eye on next weekend and we let them look good.Ok probs if they didnt have next weekend on the mind they would have given us a thrashing but in the 1st half you could see they were there for the taking.

I think Wigan showed us up for what we are Not good enough to mix it with the big boys. Their fitness and ball skills as well as individual skills just showed us up. Full credit to Wigan it was nice to watch some of their stuff.

Some strange refereeing calls, tomkins losing the ball in the tackle, not given as a knock on and then being pushed over the try line and being awarded a penalty.
I had the fortune of chatting with the match commissioner and the officials after the game, none of who could either justify or "see" the infringements, but at least took the time to explain, however when the referee turned up he neither chose to debate the issues and positively looked down his nose at me.
A more arrogant individual, lacking in the necessary skills to fulfill his duty, I have yet to encounter in our game.
That said, our side today failed to show up, had we who knows, errors from Lee Smith, Ollie Wilkes Andy Raleigh, a kick out on the full and the bizarre officialdom all added to our downfall against a largel un impressive Wigan side, another visiting BV this season that has left with the spoils without having to get out of second gear. I still can't see what Kyle Wood is offering to a beaten side that Andy Ellis isn't given the chance to show, yet again we have players playing out of position when RA has said we have a squad of 33-34 that is too big.
I understand we are building something, however I can't see wether its going to be a bungalow or a skyscraper, and judging by the performances over the last three or four games, neither can the players.

Thats moe than one word, Gash is the word.

Wood had a couple of good games since then has been average at best.The best thing Agar has done this season is drop John and put Sykes at 6 when you have said that you have said the lot.Looking at his half time team talk at the millenium and how he was wouldnt put fire in a well lit BBQ.I was willing to give him chance but the time has come to question him as a top flight coach alas like the Cas coach we gave him a contract for 3 years.I have said we are a work in progress I still maintain it but we aint showing any sign of getting better when we should.

Kirmond should have been nowhere near the team today, looked completely unfit, Wigan saw this and took advantage over and over again. Time to bring Ellis back, Wood's had more than enough games where he's failed to show anything other than a liability in defense, he seems to be living off a couple of early season games. Once again we try to throw one too many passes that constantly end up on the deck or knocked-on, sometimes we really need to just keep it simple and keep ourselves in the game.

It is, sorry boss!!

Utterly pathetic defence, yet again. Thats 14 out of 21 games where we've conceded 30 or more points.
164 points against in last 4 games - please tell me what exactly they do in training cos' it obviously aint defense.

Amor was ripping it up down the middle until RA saw fit to bring him off cant understand why as he was making the Pies pack work hard.

we need 2 props who can really back up Amor and Raleigh. imo our defence is best when Amor, Aiton, Southern, Raleigh and Lauititi are on. We need replacments who can keep the same steel in defence

I didn't expect us to beat Wigan, but conceding over 50 points (and it could have been 60 with the missed goal kicks) against a team missing a whole host of first team regulars is not acceptable. Especially as at the same time, Widnes were running St's very close and Cas were hammering the Giants.

Week in week out the same problems are there and yet nothing appears to be being done to address them : -

(1) poor marker defence allowing teams easy yards from acting half

(2) poor line speed, again allowing teams easy hards and to get a head of steam up making them harder to stop

(3) poor tackling technique (Aiton, Washbrook and usually Kirmond (although not today) excepted). Too many falling off tackles or grabbing at thin air. First man in should be round the legs - lost count of the number of times they made extra yards cos the first man went to try and smother the ball.

(4) slow play the balls, hardly any of the team struggle in the tackle to either gain a quick play the ball or a penalty

(5) forwards not coming onto the ball from deep and at pace - today was a classic example where Wigan forwards were steaming on to the ball and running with aggression, Wakey (Amor and Ali apart) ambling in making minimal yardage and not looking like breaking a tackle

(6) Too many individual errors from forced passes, wrong options. Almost trying to score on every tackle instead of trying to build pressure and then play when were in their half,

(7) Too much throwing the ball out wide quickly without drawing a man first. The times today we did draw the man, the gaps appeared

(icon_cool.gif Baffling rotation of the subs from Agar again. Amor has a stormer in his first stint and then we don't see him again for ages. Walshaw has limited minutes, Wood comes on when game lost and as others has said is not offering enough to maintain a place. For me James and Ellis should be on the interchange bench for the Giants game

As others have said, may as well try some of the young players out between now and the end of the season to see what they can do, can't do much worse than some of the current first team.

Not sure how recruitment is going for next year, but with Amor's future yet to be confirmed and rumours around Aiton going to Leeds, thats two of the best players from the current squad potentially gone, leaving a lot of work to be done.
I should add that having now seen plenty of Mathers, I sincerely hope we do not sign him beyond this season, particularly not on the sort of money he was rumoured to be on at Cas.

Anyway there were some positives today, a 9k plus crowd, it didn't rain and Aiton put Tomkins on his booty with a couple of great hits. Speaking of which for all the great stuff he did, Tomkins feigning injury after the first Aiton hit, acting as if he was out cold only to leap up when he realised he wasn't getting a penalty, was a poor reflection on him