Firestarter wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 8:49 pm
Because hes been playing well…… why else? Obviously clubb and byrne have been killing it
Thinking it’s because of squad rotation with another game on Sunday!
Heard that Lam isn’t picking the team apparently!
Ooo. Intriguing. What if someone else is playing Hastings at FB? And it's Wane that's the idiot/fool? Does it suddenly become a good decision. Probably I'd say.
I disagree.
Hastings only effective at fullback when he has space outwide at 3rd man. Smith and Tommy and the forwards have an inability to create that space which is why we see Hastings having to run either sideways or into a cul de sac outwide.
For me the most frustrating thing last night was our defence. We know our attack is misfiring but we'd still have been able to win that game but for some really soft tries conceded. How we let them go into half time with the lead despite them only having around 30% possession I'll never know.
I thought Lam made a mistake by leaving Joe Shorrocks on the bench for all of the first half. He's a good ball player and the sort of player you want on the field when we're in control. He's made a big difference when coming on after 20 minutes. He provides that extra pivot and allows Hastings to attack much wider, where he can be more effective. In the second half we only really got one or two good opportunities to take advantage of that because we didn't have the same weight of possession and the game went scrappy. Maybe Lam thought we needed to keep it tight in the first half and wanted us to muscle up down the middle but for me he should have replaced Clubb earlier (before he got caught napping by Clark for Austin's try). For most of the first half we were back to Hastings trying to do everything. He was running the ball cross field repeatedly, driving the ball in before the last tackle.
Brad Singleton had his best ever game for Wigan. He was outstanding in attack and defence and played like the sort of prop we've always needed. Aside from him though our front row was solid but not really threatening and we're still not causing teams enough problems down the middle of the field to trouble them. We're playing for individual mistakes to get an overlap out wide all the time so it's no wonder we're not scoring many points and also not surprising our goalkicking numbers are so low when pretty much every try scored is right on the touchline.
I agree with Lam about the Mamo try. It was ridiculous that Hicks didn't go to the screen. He must have been following the ball as a ref would so much have seen the collision, seen Mamo take the ball from a player who looked to be knocked out but didn't even seem to care why that had happened. When you consider Philbin's injury in the first half Isa immediately showed concern, he wasn't even tackled but Hicks stopped the game straight away. For the same thing not to apply when it happened to us is pretty shocking.
I've seen some small improvements in Leuluai's game recently but I still don't think it's enough. I'd like to see us go back to Smith and Hastings in the halves as soon as we can but Lam won't do that.
The decision to drop Clark seems questionable. Lam played Bourouh for about 5 minutes at the end of the game. What's the point? Why not have another forward on the bench? It's a waste of a bench spot unless Bourouh comes on earlier, which might not have been a bad idea given his more direct style of play could have caused Wire a few problems down the middle.
Overall I thought it in the context of this season it wasn't a bad performance and the last few weeks suggest there are some slight improvements happening but there's not enough there to make me think there's a solution to our poor attack on the horizon.
Can't say we deserved to win although we were the better team in the first half. Out two tries were created by Smith but he needs Hastings alongside him with Tommy at hooker. Powell looks busted and needs a rest (at least.) That way we can alternate tactical kickers and passing moves, which the players will have to improvise because we patently don't have any game plans.
Our defence is shocking and our forwards with the exception of KPP, Singleton and Shorrocks just don't compete. Byrne, I assume by the strapping, isn't really fit to play so shouldn't; Havard looks a shadow of last season and Isa still tries hard but doesn't really achieve much.
Most worrying is where is the support play? Whenever KPP broke clear or made yards no one backed him up so if he got free for an offload, it wouldn't have mattered.
As for Daryl Clark? He's been doing that to us for years but you wouldn't expect a coach to come up with a plan for it. Well, you might but not this coach.
Last night kind of summed up the season. We should be competing with Saints, Cats and Wire but we're not and we're not going to unless something changes and it it won't.
Last edited by Southern Softy on Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thinking it’s because of squad rotation with another game on Sunday!
Heard that Lam isn’t picking the team apparently!
Lets just say he is, but he is being pointed in a certain direction. Thats all I will say
If that's the case he has even less idea than lam. And we are seriously as a club in trouble and in desperate need of complete management clear out.
Its not as deep as that. Its “ Player A” has to play in “position X” that is the only thing Im aware of that is out of Lams control. Josie may know more than me though.
i listened to the game on 5 live last night as we are isolating, as both daughters have geeten covid
The commentary was very fair and blunt in regards to Wigan (and Wire to be honest)
Wilkin especially said that Wigan wont win the ruck as we dont dominate and thus the slow POB with a slow hooker means that we will rarely get a roll on, He illustrated Wire 1st try for this, Couple of good drives with quick POB to follow and Clark was through - try scored when Wigan had all the ball, possession and territory, but not doing enough with it. He also said a few times that the Wire right hand defence was weak with Ratchford, Mamo and Charnley who all have defensive faults in them, so why do we not target that?
They also focussed on Hastings at fullback, and pretty much said he is wasted at FB, but effectively still our best attacking option.
listening it just seemed a carbon copy of the majority of the season. We all know that the attack isnt working well, and despite seemlingly dominating went in at half time behind because of that. Wire were really there for the taking last night and it was a massive fail not to put them away imo
Southern Softy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:22 am
Can't say we deserved to win although we were the better team in the first half. Out two tries were created by Smith but he needs Hastings alongside him with Tommy at hooker. Powell looks busted and needs a rest (at least.) That way we can alternate tactical kickers and passing moves, which the players will have to improvise because we patently don't have any game plans.
Our defence is shocking and our forwards with the exception of KPP, Singleton and Shorrocks just don't compete. Byrne, I assume by the strapping, isn't really fit to play so shouldn't; Havard looks a shadow of last season and Isa still tries hard but doesn't really achieve much.
Most worrying is where is the support play? Whenever KPP broke clear or made yards no one backed him up so if he got free for an offload, it wouldn't have mattered. As for Daryl Clark? He's been doing that to us for years but you wouldn't expect a coach to come up with a plan for it. Well, you might but not this coach.
Last night kind of summed up the season. We should be competing with Saints, Cats and Wire but we're not and we're not going to unless something changes and it it won't.
Wrong way of looking at it. It's about slowing the POTB down, winning the floor/ground etc. Clark is only able to do those runs against a retreating/still defensive line when the Warrington players win the ground battle (Find the floor quickly and on front to enable a quick POTB).
the pieman wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:49 am
i listened to the game on 5 live last night as we are isolating, as both daughters have geeten covid
The commentary was very fair and blunt in regards to Wigan (and Wire to be honest)
Wilkin especially said that Wigan wont win the ruck as we dont dominate and thus the slow POB with a slow hooker means that we will rarely get a roll on, He illustrated Wire 1st try for this, Couple of good drives with quick POB to follow and Clark was through - try scored when Wigan had all the ball, possession and territory, but not doing enough with it. He also said a few times that the Wire right hand defence was weak with Ratchford, Mamo and Charnley who all have defensive faults in them, so why do we not target that?
They also focussed on Hastings at fullback, and pretty much said he is wasted at FB, but effectively still our best attacking option.
listening it just seemed a carbon copy of the majority of the season. We all know that the attack isnt working well, and despite seemlingly dominating went in at half time behind because of that. Wire were really there for the taking last night and it was a massive fail not to put them away imo
We didn't even really test Akuala on the wing with some testing kicks.
Southern Softy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:22 am
Can't say we deserved to win although we were the better team in the first half. Out two tries were created by Smith but he needs Hastings alongside him with Tommy at hooker. Powell looks busted and needs a rest (at least.) That way we can alternate tactical kickers and passing moves, which the players will have to improvise because we patently don't have any game plans.
Our defence is shocking and our forwards with the exception of KPP, Singleton and Shorrocks just don't compete. Byrne, I assume by the strapping, isn't really fit to play so shouldn't; Havard looks a shadow of last season and Isa still tries hard but doesn't really achieve much.
Most worrying is where is the support play? Whenever KPP broke clear or made yards no one backed him up so if he got free for an offload, it wouldn't have mattered. As for Daryl Clark? He's been doing that to us for years but you wouldn't expect a coach to come up with a plan for it. Well, you might but not this coach.
Last night kind of summed up the season. We should be competing with Saints, Cats and Wire but we're not and we're not going to unless something changes and it it won't.
Wrong way of looking at it. It's about slowing the POTB down, winning the floor/ground etc. Clark is only able to do those runs against a retreating/still defensive line when the Warrington players win the ground battle (Find the floor quickly and on front to enable a quick POTB).
Actually, Clark did last night what he always has done. He waits until the covering player is out of the game (yesterday it was Powell who was having some kind of mini-effort at a ball steal, raised his hands to signify that he was out of the tackle so no penalty and was then effectively out of position and the game). Clark, who's a really good quick-thinker ran straight through the vacant space and then had options because he was running faster forward than the retreating defence were. I'd love to have a hooker like him - oh wait we used to have MM didn't we?
It happens all too often that we commit 3 or 4 men to the tackle and then find ourselves with one man the wrong side of the ball and a hole appears, usually down the middle. When that happens, slowing the PTB down isn't as effective as it normally is but I take your point that it is something we need to get better at.
Firestarter wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 8:49 pm
Because hes been playing well…… why else? Obviously clubb and byrne have been killing it
Thinking it’s because of squad rotation with another game on Sunday!
Heard that Lam isn’t picking the team apparently!
Ooo. Intriguing. What if someone else is playing Hastings at FB? And it's Wane that's the idiot/fool? Does it suddenly become a good decision. Probably I'd say.
I said a couple of weeks ago about Lam having to put up with interference from upstairs, the plot thickens
