What’s caused the slump?

[archiekeith]

It goes back to one appointment as far as I am concerned. That of Radlinski.

He is the root cause of all of this along with IL giving him the responsibilities he has.

It’s Radlinski who is running the club as CEO and is the one making decisions on signings, retention, pay including those of the coaching staff.

I don’t think he has the knowledge to do the job. The reason we end up appointing the likes of Lockers, TL and Peet as coaches is in my opinion because Radlinski doesn’t have a clue how to go and recruit a decent coach from outside the club particularly when it comes to any coach from Australia. I don’t believe for one minute it is because of some misguided notion of a “Wigan Culture” though he may convince himself there is such a thing to justify his recruitment. Overall it’s just a lazy approach.

Even some of the signings that look Ok such as Cooper and King are more down to luck than judgement. Cooper’s didn’t fit in with Powell’s plans at Wire so he became available and King is only out on loan for salary cap reasons. The only recent signing he seems to have proactively chased is Wardle.

Another aspect of that laziness is when it comes to a players contract being up is it often seems they are renewed without any consideration given to whether or not there is a better player available. There appears no desire to constantly strive to improve the side. Instead we seem to keep players past their sell by dates and regardless of how good they are. There are very few players like Roby at Saints who can play on effectively beyond their expected retirement dates but Wigan think nothing of dishing out contracts to player’s of similar vintage who are just past it. A well run club would see them replaced before they were on their last legs.

Even the quota is mismanaged with players in it who won’t get a game if the first 17 are fit and that left us unable to replace Bateman with an overseas player given no U.K. based ones were available.

The whole Bateman saga also sums up his ineptitude. That press release he put out when he left was an embarrassment. It was a long list of excuses. One minute he wasn’t leaving and the matter was closed. The next the club are discussing it with him before the World Cup despite the matter being closed. Then they aren’t because it’s the World Cup. Then they are after the world cup and then he’s gone. Joke.

I really wish I could agree with your points but then you then makes points along the lines of

Anything good is luck and nothing to do with KR or IL
Anything bad is automatically KR and IL.

It's a false narrative made to fit your view.

I am not defending our current predicament but your post are misleading because your spend the time to put in antidanecdotal evidence that seems correct unless you actually go look it up.

Atleast we can't have the Powell is undroppable one anymore.

Can you factually say you actually know KR is micromanaging to running the club to the level you state? CEOs outside of very small business's are rarely as hands on with every level as you suggest and in some cases like recruitment are just the final sign off.

I don't think Dave's post is misleading at all. It's clear intelligable concise. It's what he believes based on how he understands outlined in what he's written. Your allegations you state are along the lines to fit his. view? Well it "fits is views because that's exactly what his views are like I say clear and concise at least to me. It's called an opinion which you can agree or disagree but what he says is intelligible. Dave is giving his opinions not making a statement of fact. There is a difference

[archiekeith]

Just checking my above pos t and notice that you say Dave's views are "anti- anecdotal. Well there not they are anecdotal being subjective a synonym of/for anecdotal :lol:and so his opinions

[Caboosegg]

Just checking my above pos t and notice that you say Dave's views are "anti- anecdotal. Well there not they are anecdotal being subjective a synonym of/for anecdotal :lol:and so his opinions

It's fat finger and suggested text syndrome. I do mean anecdotal.
And it is, only evidence ever provided is the one that supports the view. The post make sense until you take a step back and realise what the poster is actually saying is anything good is despite the club anything bad is the club.

It's not black and white and its a trend same was said about Wane, we won despite him never because of him. Its like a 350 million on a bus great statement on first glance if you ignore anything else.

I have no issue with people having a different opinion just felt that one needed replying to.

[blindsideprop]

The problems are firstly our spine ,apart from full back, so 6,7 and 9 is worst in Sl,secondly recruitment,Mago,Ellis,Thornley,Hampshire just to name 4 are simply not good enough.You could also add the fact that having French and Field is not ideal.Both are oustanding full backs but they cant both play there and are wasted anywhere else.Finally the old boys network,Briers was a breath of fresh air,broughT skill and new ideas to the club and we won CC.

[EagleEyePie]

It goes back to one appointment as far as I am concerned. That of Radlinski.

He is the root cause of all of this along with IL giving him the responsibilities he has.

It’s Radlinski who is running the club as CEO and is the one making decisions on signings, retention, pay including those of the coaching staff.

I don’t think he has the knowledge to do the job. The reason we end up appointing the likes of Lockers, TL and Peet as coaches is in my opinion because Radlinski doesn’t have a clue how to go and recruit a decent coach from outside the club particularly when it comes to any coach from Australia. I don’t believe for one minute it is because of some misguided notion of a “Wigan Culture” though he may convince himself there is such a thing to justify his recruitment. Overall it’s just a lazy approach.

Even some of the signings that look Ok such as Cooper and King are more down to luck than judgement. Cooper’s didn’t fit in with Powell’s plans at Wire so he became available and King is only out on loan for salary cap reasons. The only recent signing he seems to have proactively chased is Wardle.

Another aspect of that laziness is when it comes to a players contract being up is it often seems they are renewed without any consideration given to whether or not there is a better player available. There appears no desire to constantly strive to improve the side. Instead we seem to keep players past their sell by dates and regardless of how good they are. There are very few players like Roby at Saints who can play on effectively beyond their expected retirement dates but Wigan think nothing of dishing out contracts to player’s of similar vintage who are just past it. A well run club would see them replaced before they were on their last legs.

Even the quota is mismanaged with players in it who won’t get a game if the first 17 are fit and that left us unable to replace Bateman with an overseas player given no U.K. based ones were available.

The whole Bateman saga also sums up his ineptitude. That press release he put out when he left was an embarrassment. It was a long list of excuses. One minute he wasn’t leaving and the matter was closed. The next the club are discussing it with him before the World Cup despite the matter being closed. Then they aren’t because it’s the World Cup. Then they are after the world cup and then he’s gone. Joke.

I really wish I could agree with your points but then you then makes points along the lines of

Anything good is luck and nothing to do with KR or IL
Anything bad is automatically KR and IL.

It's a false narrative made to fit your view.

I am not defending our current predicament but your post are misleading because your spend the time to put in antidanecdotal evidence that seems correct unless you actually go look it up.

Atleast we can't have the Powell is undroppable one anymore.

Can you factually say you actually know KR is micromanaging to running the club to the level you state? CEOs outside of very small business's are rarely as hands on with every level as you suggest and in some cases like recruitment are just the final sign off.

While I wouldn't put in the same terms as DaveO, I do think there are some valid criticisms in that post, even if it is a little bit light on giving credit where it's due for any positives.

I think it's fair to question whether this focus on players and coaches with prior links to the club being brought back or given jobs is actually the right one. In terms of bringing former players back that's been a disaster. Fortunately it seems like the message has finally landed as in previous seasons we'd probably have re-signed Gildart.

In terms of coaches that's harder to unpack as Lenagan makes those decisions too. What we can say is the initial decision to bring in Shaun Edwards was utterly barmy, which makes it hard to judge the appointment of Lam. Lam almost certainly signed as interim because of his links with the club. I actually think on balance he wasn't a bad appointment though, for reasons I will bring up in a bit. It actually made some sense, but it wasn't intentional. Matt Peet then replaced him and won a trophy at the first time of asking. So in terms of head coaches you can't be too critical at this point.

Looking beyond head coaches, we brought in Lee Briers from outside the club, so it shows that the club are willing to bring in people from outside the club. I would ask the question though - is Sean O'Loughlin our assistant coach because he's a quality coach, or just because he's Sean O'Loughlin and wants to be a coach. The same goes for Leuluai. Is he there due to his quality or because the club offered him the role as part of his playing contract? I have concerns that the club is already eyeing up one of them to be Matt Peet's replacement and I'm sceptical because top players rarely become top coaches and it's even rarer that it works out at the club where they are essentially legends. You can't criticise something that hasn't happened though, so for me you can't be overly critical in terms of coaching appointments so far.

Why do I think Lam wasn't a bad appointment? Because I think he's proving at Leigh that he's not as bad as his final year at Wigan suggested, but also that he has an eye for recruiting good players, but Radlinski held him back. In fact I think recruitment is the single biggest criticism you can level at Radlinski. Lam even stated in an interview last year that he enjoys being at Leigh more because he has more freedom to work with Derek Beaumont and recruit the players that he wants. And he's recruited better quality players at Leigh than Radlinski has at Wigan, because Field, French and Hastings were Lam's three Wigan signings (according to Lam, and I don't think there's any reason for him to be lying).

That means Radlinski's signings during Lam's tenure include Joe Bullock, Zak Hardaker, Jake Bibby, George Burgess, Mitch Clark, Kai Pearce-Paul and the re-signing of John Bateman. None of those worked out.
We know that Matt Peet has had an input in two of our signings, Ellis and Mago, as that was stated by both Lenagan and Radlinski. Who was behind the signings of Miski, Cust, Thornley, Silva, King, Wardle and Hampshire isn't so clear, but I do get the feeling that the issue of poor recruitment was recognised and that it's now between Radlinski, Wane and Peet to decide recruitment targets.

DaveO was right to point out that neither Radlinski nor Peet can take much credit for the signing of Mike Cooper because Wire literally contacted Wigan and asked if we'd be interested in signing him. We didn't chase him, he fell into our lap because Wire were desperate to sign Dufty.

So essentially, Wigan accidentally recruited a coach with a keen eye for signing quality players and then limited his ability to recruit players. I understand that giving coaches free reign can be problematic when it comes to recruitment, but it seems that our previous coach was barely consulted at times and poor decisions were made.

Does he manage player retention well enough? I think there are some questions to be asked there too. We seem to be keen to keep hold of what we have and there's not a lot of ambition or ruthlessness. We see other teams sign quality players while we're happy to let players that aren't performing see out their contracts or even reward them with new ones.

We don't seem to have tried to get rid of Singleton and seemingly decided against letting Mago leave. Both of those players have essentially become fringe players in a full strength side so even taking a punt on someone cheaper isn't a massive risk, but instead the club sticks with what we know isn't good enough.

[Barney841]

Our pack is awful full stop.
Need a full clear out. Even Faz eventually as he’s not the player he was, but he’d be the last to go.
Still not convinced by Smith and Peet needs to decide who to keep Field or French, they’re too similar players. Also we could do with another winger, Miski is ok but I think we could do with a better one

[Flash]

Just picking up on one point from the above posts. It's not true that top players rarely make good coaches. Our own Andy Farrell and Shaun Edwards are regarded as among the best in the world, albeit in the other code. The current State of Origin coaches (Brad Fittler and Billy Slater) were pretty handy players, as was the current Australian national coach, Mal Meninga. Lam seems to be flourishing in his current environment and was a highly regarded assistant coach before that. Both Ellery Hanley and Graham West won plenty in their times too, both as players and coaches. A certain Lee Briers seems to be doing alright for himself and many are bemoaning his loss. Arthur Beetson is regarded as among the best there's ever been! There are loads more examples but you get the picture. It might be true to say that not all top players go on to make good coaches but it's by no means mutually exclusive.

[EagleEyePie]

Just picking up on one point from the above posts. It's not true that top players rarely make good coaches. Our own Andy Farrell and Shaun Edwards are regarded as among the best in the world, albeit in the other code. The current State of Origin coaches (Brad Fittler and Billy Slater) were pretty handy players, as was the current Australian national coach, Mal Meninga. Lam seems to be flourishing in his current environment and was a highly regarded assistant coach before that. Both Ellery Hanley and Graham West won plenty in their times too, both as players and coaches. A certain Lee Briers seems to be doing alright for himself and many are bemoaning his loss. Arthur Beetson is regarded as among the best there's ever been! There are loads more examples but you get the picture. It might be true to say that not all top players go on to make good coaches but it's by no means mutually exclusive.

Some of the best players have become coaches at representative level, but it seems the requirements are a little bit different when it comes to coaching at club level. I'm not sure there are that many club legends or legends of the game who were top coaches so I'd still say it's still a rarity, just not impossible.

Though to negate my own point slightly, Leuluai was a fantastic player but I don't think there was ever a point where he'd have been considered one of the very best players in the competition. He was never selected for the SL Dream Team and I don't know if he was ever awarded a player of the season award at any of his clubs.

I've always thought that coaching ability was determined by how much a player had to learn and develop as a player. The most talented players often have natural ability that needs little coaching and don't have to work as hard to keep playing at the highest level, and it's harder to impart what comes naturally to them. But I wouldn't really know what I'm talking about on that one.

Really I'm just worried we'll have a Keiron Cunningham scenario.

[Suzieb]

The problem is we are paying ex players wages as coaches

[Firestarter]

The problem is we are paying ex players wages as coaches

Does this count on the salary cap? If it does then ide glady lose both for two good players