I'd much Gentle and Pearson in charge...but as i've already said, all this investment isn't delivering as yet and there's little sign of things changing soon.

On the other points: Gentle stripped Lynch of the captaincy, which may have affected his morale. If that isn't the case, and his loss of form has been due to getting old...then you have to question why the club extended his deal so early in to his contract.

With Briscoe it is the coaches job to motivate his side, if Gentle coulden't do that he should have been dropped for Crookes months ago.

I think Holdsworth is average, but the best we could get at the time, and to be fair to the club there is a massive lack of quality half-backs in Super League which is a wider issue for the game as a whole.

I think Wembley came a year early in the plans, AP is no fool and he knows as anyone with any sense knows it takes a few years to get a squad sorted. The basis of the present team has a far splattering of the old guard and whilst some will be reatined others will and should be moved on.

Saturday should be seen as a bonus both to the club coffers and by us, some may argue that we could have done better given the resources we have now. In the Kath years we where promised jam tomorrow far too many times, fans have run out of patience after such a short time thats the Kath/Agar legacy.

Remind me how many years did Agar have ?

If you talk to any of the players or parents of players in the youth set up, they will tell you how much AP has invested. It's not the sort of thing most people would notice, but will payoff a few years down the line

spot on ian, rome wasnt built in a day, think some need to realise its a long term haul not a sprint, saying that we could do with a couple of good signings just to cheer us up a bit

Perhaps at the same stage now as Hudds were a few years back when they made a final and underperformed? It's taken a while but I don't think many would argue that they're semi-serious challengers at the very least now.

That was 7 years ago. I hope we don't have to wait that long

think how sweet its gonna be when we win at wembley lol

No one can question pearson's commitment and we lost £1/2m last season based on additional investment. Having said that, I'm sure we haven't made the progress he expected on the pitch and if we hadn't made Wembley I think he would have sacked gentle

I think he still might.

Speaking to a Wigan fan on Saturday night who claimed to be a pal of Paul Johnson. He told me Johnson is leaving as is Gentle. I personally do not think the first team has made much progress and the loss of Briscoe, O'Meley, Tickle, Gale and Lynch will strip the side of most of the experience and will be hard to replace.

Interesting times.

This is not my view of what should happen necessarily, but if we limp into the play-offs and out in the first round, Wembley aside that's way off AP's expectations and will not be a boost to season pass sales. I think he might sack Gentle in this scenario.

If we end up with a good last couple of games and a play-off win, that's improvement year on year with Wembley added in.

Question is now whether AP sees Gentle as the coach to take us to the next level and is patient whilst the pipeline bears fruit. Our lack of basic attacking structure has not been dealt with, this is the biggest concern for me, however defensively robust we are. There don't appear to be many compelling alternatives coach-wise however.

I'd agree with this assessment, the other option is we stick with Gentle, but bring in an attacking coach. Leaving Gentle free to concentrate on the defence coaching (which is his specialism)

There is nothing to be achieved by sacking Gentle unless he is going to be replaced by someone much, much better. Exactly who might that be? Not the likes of McNamara, Potter or Brian Smith that's for sure!

It's also interesting that the only signing we have officially made is that of Paea. I know we've been linked to Thompson and Walker but neither have been confirmed. Could it be that Pearson has not sanctioned any further signings as yet due to him being undecided as to whether Gentle will be the coach next season?

Well said.