Where should the buck stop?

[Exiled Wiganer]

I really don’t dislike Lam, and think his reputation at the club should not suffer as a result of his stepping into the breach. I am sure he assumed he could do a good job and is doing his best, but sometimes you don’t know you aren’t up to it until you find yourself in that position. We don’t know what back room staff we need or even what players we need, as we don’t truly know how much potential this group of champions has. First thing to do is replace Lam with someone of the calibre of Flanagan, and then take stock.

The players have been gutless over and over again this year, as well as having no structure or the right level of conditioning. Motivation and preparation are entirely Lam’s responsibility.

[moto748]

It's not unfair at all to criticise Lam. When a team is only two points behind at half-time, albeit playing badly, it's up to the coach to sort things out and get that side firing in the second half. That's what good coaches do; we see it all the time, both in SL and the NRL. Instead, we went from bad to worse.

[DaveO]

I've no issue with them bringing Lam is as coach. Most people seemed to want an assistant from the NRL to replace Wane and that's what we got. He was probably the most experienced candidate available and his links to the club made the appointment easier.

Most experienced candidate? You need to check out his CV compared to Holbrook for example. His PNG job was part time and he’s got very little experience as an assistant NRL coach and was coaching juniors when we signed him.

think perhaps Radlinski and Lenagan saw some justification in cutting the wage bill last season when we let players leave and still ended the season champions. That may have clouded their judgement a bit regarding the abilities of the players we have left.

For me Greenwood and Bateman were the catalysts at the end of last season and now that Bateman has gone and Greenwood has been plagued with injury problems to the point of being absent or ineffective in many games we're really getting exposed for the weak middle that we've always had. I've said it many times that the forwards were a priority for signings this year and we'd got too many backs.

That probably means that the buck stops with Rads and IL, as I don't view the squad as being particularly good enough to give Lam much of a chance. Still, there's a long way yet to go in the season and chances in fortune can be sudden.

Rads and IL surely can’t have thought they could lose the players we did and be in an equally good position but if they did it still begs the question when did the club stop trying to improve rather than stand still?

[DaveO]

It is clear as day. It is Lam. We have the vast majority of the team that won the GF, and the pick of the best juniors in the game. We clearly have no plan, are unfit and give up. All of those are problems of his making. I have no idea why we have someone with no business expertise as CEO, and so would apportion some “blame” to the well meaning Rads. IL has bank rolled a decade of success, and has plenty of credit from my perspective.

See i agree with this, the IL haters will do anything to blame him for everything.

Yes we have a weaker team i will accept that and i didn't expect any big name signing due to it basically being a handover year with lam as a stop gap.

But even if we don't have a good enough team to win everything the team is good enough to at least compete and play some consistent rugby.

We arnt competing and the only consistent we seem to have is consistently poor.

So you acknowledge we have a weaker team but are still making excuses for IL leaving us with this squad because it was a handover year. That was no reason not to sign players because he was always going to be able to ask Edwards who was until he got cold feet attending games. In any case it goes against what we know about how the club works which is its IL and Rads who do the signings and the coach gets on with it.

I don’t disagree Lam should be getting more from the team but with Bitcon gone, the players gone and the injuries he’s been dealt a rough hand and IL is to blame for weakening the squad.