What do you have to do to be 'good enough for Wigan?'

[josie andrews]

I don't think it's a case of comparisons to the glory years but we have, as a result of those years and before then, come to expect certain things from any player that pulls on a Wigan shirt.

Rightly or wrongly, we expect players to display certain attributes regardless of their age, position, reputation, injury, background etc. We expect, more so than any other club in my opinion, players to display absolute loyalty and passion, unswerving commitment to their team-mates, dedication and professionalism. We expect them to put their body on the line - was it Shaun Edwards or Dean Bell who said that the only valid excuse for not being in the defensive line was having a broken leg?

Similarly we have come to expect certain attributes/qualities from certian positions (to list just a few):

• full-backs without fear (Radlinski, Hampson)
  fast, agile, strong and confident wingers (Robinson, Gill, Ferguson, Dallas)
  centres with speed, superb hands and strong tackling (Miles, Connolly, Bell)
  clever, confident half-backs who control and dictate the game (Edwards, Lam, Gregory, Barrett)
  fearless, hard-as-iron prop forwards (Skerrett, O'Connor, Smith)
  crafty hookers (Newton, Dermott)
  hard-running, ball-handling, tackle-all-day 2nd rowers (Cassidy, Hock(!), Betts)
  creative, classy and dominant loose forwards (farrell and hanley)

I think that's why, when we see players, like Ainscough and Tomkins displaying the qualities that we have come to expect, we respond to them so well and when we see players not displaying these attributes (Mathers, Tim Smith...I won't go on) we dismiss them as not good enough for Wigan.

I don't know whether it's right or wrong that we should expect all of this from our players but it certainly heaps a whole load of pressure on them! See Fielden's recent comments.

Excellent post :eusa2:
I do think that the phrase "not good enough for Wigan" is starting to get banded about a bit too much and more frequently than I like. There's an incredibly fine line that a player treads on this site as to whether he has praise heaped on him or whether he is berated. There's also very little patience regarding new signings and settling in.

Both excellent posts. Welcome to the site elgrego

[josie andrews]

DaveO, in Kris Radlinski's book he touches on how 'the culture of the club has eroded' over the years.

Over my years at Wigan, I noticed the culture of the club eroded – and it was not one coach’s fault. It was just a shift that happened, gradually and unexplainably, from the Wigan I joined to the Wigan I left. When I went into the first-team in the early 90s, there was a very strong culture in place. A culture we all abided to. It’s hard to quantify culture, harder still to explain how it changed, but there seemed to be more passion, a clearer direction, a hungrier work ethic and mutual respect then compared to the club I left. I was promoted to the first-team squad with Simon Haughton. There were only two of us who were new, and we would get shouted at for any minor detail that we got wrong. The senior players were concerned about the team, not our feelings, and they wouldn’t worry about upsetting us.
While we didn’t appreciate it at the time, it taught us lessons and made us stronger. After they’d bollocked us, we’d have to sit with them – we couldn’t go and hang around with a posse of friends our own age. That attitude, that culture, showed us the way we needed to act when, over the following years, the next crop of players came through. It underlined the standards that must be maintained. Yet by the end of my career, it had got to the point where, if a senior player bollocked a young lad, he’d just go away and laugh about it with their mates.

This is just a paragraph and it goes on to give an example, but you will have to wait until June and buy the book, you will be amazed with how honest he is about the club he loves.

[fitzy]

I didn't think rads book came out till June Josie?

[cpwigan]

Josie was given a draft to proof read

[josie andrews]

It doesn't.

I am a friend of his, and have had the privilege of reading parts of it before it went to press.

[fitzy]

Lucky beggar

[josie andrews]

I think so too

[cpwigan]

DaveO, in Kris Radlinski's book he touches on how 'the culture of the club has eroded' over the years.

Over my years at Wigan, I noticed the culture of the club eroded – and it was not one coach’s fault. It was just a shift that happened, gradually and unexplainably, from the Wigan I joined to the Wigan I left. When I went into the first-team in the early 90s, there was a very strong culture in place. A culture we all abided to. It’s hard to quantify culture, harder still to explain how it changed, but there seemed to be more passion, a clearer direction, a hungrier work ethic and mutual respect then compared to the club I left. I was promoted to the first-team squad with Simon Haughton. There were only two of us who were new, and we would get shouted at for any minor detail that we got wrong. The senior players were concerned about the team, not our feelings, and they wouldn’t worry about upsetting us.
While we didn’t appreciate it at the time, it taught us lessons and made us stronger. After they’d bollocked us, we’d have to sit with them – we couldn’t go and hang around with a posse of friends our own age. That attitude, that culture, showed us the way we needed to act when, over the following years, the next crop of players came through. It underlined the standards that must be maintained. Yet by the end of my career, it had got to the point where, if a senior player bollocked a young lad, he’d just go away and laugh about it with their mates.

This is just a paragraph and it goes on to give an example, but you will have to wait until June and buy the book, you will be amazed with how honest he is about the club he loves.

Just think Jim and Guy would damn such ruthless behaviour. Maybe some of us have the Old Wigan ideas in us too.

[josie andrews]

I think you and I have cp or are we just old fashioned in our ethics

[cpwigan]

I think you and I have cp or are we just old fashioned in our ethics

Exactly and there is no better supporter of players than you but whether people like it or not what Rads says is so spot on. You see it with Shaun Edwards when he coaches the Union Teams now and he's often said to be crazy, mad. I say the world has gone made. To pass your coaching badges you have to encourage and never criticise, SHOUT how dare you. People take their ball home now if somebody dare shout at them, criticise them. Does it do people any favours? Rads is glad those old nasty pros screamed at him, badgered him.