WANE BALL

[jobo]

In all fairness last night wasn't for the purists. Yes very entertaining for the neutrals who were obviously begging Wire to turn us over, but it was a mistake ridden game with little defence from both sets of players.

There is no doubt I am over the moon and the 3/4 were unbelievable with Gelling, Tomkins and Manfredi really running the show down that right edge.

But Waneball was very much the agenda of the game, luckily for us the opposition were weak in the 3/4 and it maximised that kind of style.

When it comes to the arm wrestle the game would have been a lot closer.

We did ok in the arm wrestle against Sts and only just came up short in the other one v Brisbane.

Think our banana skins come when they're least expected, like Widnes and HKR.

[PaulC]

I agree with west stand-rich about the odd suicide pass.

I really love the joel, gels and manf setup, its sublime. With clubb, flower, crosby and mac doing the work down the centre we sure do have a juicy pack.

I almost forgot (shame on me) williams, bateman and rocky who do a fab job.

Its something when you look at sarge, budgie and charnley and think on occasions they look average in comparison (I'm not saying rubbish by any means!!). Its a nice place to be thats for sure!

Josie, any chance we can make this thread a sticky, as so far its the only positive thread on the forum

[Mike]

In all fairness last night wasn't for the purists. Yes very entertaining for the neutrals who were obviously begging Wire to turn us over, but it was a mistake ridden game with little defence from both sets of players.

I'm not sure that is was mistake ridden, especially handling-wise. I think it was an entertaining game because a lot of the passes stuck and up until a few weeks ago they haven't been doing.

Defence was shaky, especially our goal-line defence though.

[jaws1]

IMO we have started to play better since we have stopped the fighting all season including the friendlies we wanted to fight all the time.

[cpwigan]

Who could not enjoy a game like last night. It had everything in terms of many scores and the lead changing hands. On it's day Wane ball is awesome.

Likewise, Widnes under Laughton and occasionally St Helens during our 80's-mid 90's halcyon era produced some amazing and entertaining RL. Many said far better than what we produced. Therein lies the issue;

Widnes were sublime but they won far less big games when it mattered, they never reached Wembley because they would 'bomb out' before the final came around, usually in the semi. Saints were even more erratic but boy when it clicked it was amazing.

So the ? is can Waneball deliver consistently when it comes to the big games? It is incredibly risky and I dare say after being 10-0 down 99.9% of Wiganers were embarrassed and thinking Mary mother of God ......... However, the vulnerability of Waneball added to the excitement.

The ? is can you trust Waneball or do you have more confidence in clinical Melbourne Madge NRL? Some may even say you know what I have less confidence in Waneball but I enjoy watching it and that is fine but you have to be prepared to endure the rough and the smooth because Waneball is much more likely to break down. You have to be prepared to accept that we will lose far more games to NRL opposition unless the day Waneball works perfectly coincides with one such game.

Maybe it does not matter. When children smile like they did last night who cares. The concern, if you win things/are successful parents turn up and bring those smiling kids. If you lose/are unsuccessful far fewer children will ever be brought to games like last night.

I grew up when Wigan RLFC was virtually dead. If you wanted to watch sport you could go to Wigan Athletic newly / recently promoted to the football league. I went to every home game that Wigan Athletic played in the football league for 3,4, 5 years, maybe more? Simply because a relative was football crazy and had no child. The magic only started when Wigan RLFC started treating the Wigan public particularly children to amazing heroes like Brett Kenny and John Ferguson, Steve Ella & Greg Dowling, Ellery & Gilly etc etc. Such magic required clinical antipodean coaching. Prersonally, I still think it does.

[cpwigan]

So ive scoured through all of the posts after the game last night and could not believe that there was no negative mention about the mysterious beast that is Wane Ball.

So, let me be the first to say WANE BALL and ITS WORKING in the same sentence

Even CP was happy

Only a bit of banter, but on a serious not we sure do have one solid team out there, and one that's really starting to come together nicely!!

I took your post in the humour it was meant Paul. Last night I did not want to spoil what was a thrilling night for all Wiganers.

[cpwigan]

With the offloading game that we've seen in the last handful of games could we even say that Waneball is dead!?

Actually, we can't, because what people call Waneball is one particular type of play - spreading it wide with forwards only being used as second man dummy runners for multiple plays in a row.

We still use it and with good effect at times and it fails at times, just like any style of play. BUT, what we surely can start to put on the shelf is the 'we only have one way of playing under this dumb coach' line. Clearly not as we scored a variety of tries from a variety of set ups last night and over the last few weeks have won games in different ways. We've played it big and tough in the forwards (Hull FC, St Helens), we've played with freedom and flair in the backs (Wakefield, Catalans) and we've found a middle ground (Warrington, Huddersfield - albeit the latter was error strewn so kept the score down).

All we need to do now if find a way of playing and winning away from home!

Has Waneball changed? I think it has or had until last night. Even last night we made the hard yard more readily. However, last night became more pure Waneball IMO with huge sweeping lateral spreads in our own half.

What has certainly been changing and possibly needed to change was the offloading. Melbourne Madge RL is based on reducing the likelihood of making errors and offloaded is discouraged because it is high risk. Look at Gaz Hock, sublime offloads to disasturous offloads in any one game. Perhaps Gelling is the new Gaz Hock? without the extras!

So if Waneball is the way of the current coach then perhaps he needs to dispense with all elements of Madge and embrace the offloading that was the hallmark of say Laughton's Widnes. I watch Wire (N.B Smith has been there too long, Jack Gibson was right) and in 2015 they now seem trapped between playing the high risk offload game they had to one that attempts to be more conventional and safe which in their case seems far worse. However, remember Wire could dazzle teams, promise so much and yet bomb out very often too.

If you have the players though it works better. Wire once had more players suited to it and won some trophies. There can be no doubt IMO that Wigan have a superior squad particularly depth than any club bar Leeds. If you want to offload then players such as Gelling and Tautai become vital.

My own personal belief is that you can marry the Madge philosophy with the Waneball philosophy 75-25. Namely using clinical Melbourne Madge to get you into the opp 20 as much as possible and then use Waneball in the opp 20 or with a big lead throw some Waneball in from anywhere entertainment wise.

I do think that we are running less 2nd man plays which is very good. The biggest downfall of Waneball at the moment is the philosophy does not have a focus on kicking. Kicks are generally a last resort no planned to build pressure because to plan and build pressure requires so conservative build up whereby a repeat set is the primary goal which it never is with Waneball. The one possible genuine strength that Waneball can utilise is Gelling and his in goal grubbers. Moreover if you get defenders way of Gelling kicking it throws another puzzle in defenders heads, keep them on the backfoot and gives our attackers more time and room.

[josie andrews]

I agree with west stand-rich about the odd suicide pass.

I really love the joel, gels and manf setup, its sublime. With clubb, flower, crosby and mac doing the work down the centre we sure do have a juicy pack.

I almost forgot (shame on me) williams, bateman and rocky who do a fab job.

Its something when you look at sarge, budgie and charnley and think on occasions they look average in comparison (I'm not saying rubbish by any means!!). Its a nice place to be thats for sure!

Josie, any chance we can make this thread a sticky, as so far its the only positive thread on the forum

[PaulC]

Glad you took it in humour CP - Its rare that I'm serious about anything.

Its been a great week for rugby so far - 2 wins, saints slaughtered tonight, ben back, sam back, teams playing well and we now have the second best points difference in the league which may count later on as it has done early on this season.

Id love to delve into our stats now to see how they've improved. Just watching the game 3 things have been very noticable:

> Many many many many many less penalties (lets be honest we couldn't have given away any more early on in the season)
> Our metres made must be well up
> Offloads must have gone up 10 fold

and finally whilst our speed in the ruck can be a little slow at times with logan, we seem to be getting the ball out much quicket.

Did I mention that the Joel, Gel, Manfradi setup is like a wet dream for any wigan fan Just need to get faz, sarge and budgie to get their act together a little and with george and rocky kicking it about and the big lads in the middle keeping up their good work rate and I genuinely think we could get ourselves some nice silverware this season.

All credit to leeds though, they are going to take some beating, but if anyone can do it we can

[Mike]

Personally, I'd expect handling errors to be down this week as well.