Wigan Squad

[Dreamteam]

Been confident about this game all week. Still only lost 3 games in 2 years at home under peet. Really vital we win all these home games left and nick an away win to secure second. Don’t fear anybody at home

[Mike]

If that 'tackle' by Asiata was what he has been doing in recent matches, then Wellens has a point. It was not only reckless but was like a flying shoulder-charge with the only intention of stopping an opponent by any means. Needs to be looked at by the RL Disciplinary (Spoiler Alert - it won't.)
A great (eventual) demolition but French still looks lost in the halves; Field doesn't seem to be able to define his attacking role - his defence is OK; Byrne needs to have a long hard look at himself; great to see Miski get MOM - well deserved and as for Dupree..................... Cor!!!
With Walters on the way and Havard back with what seems to be a happy Ellis and Cooper to follow, the future looks good, not forgetting Hill and Nsemba.
Cust looked as if he was enjoying himself and coming back to form - smart to rest O'Neill, who again very good so, maybe we can forget that Cup defeat and press on with a bit more hope.

What does he have to do!

[Southern Softy]

As we are going to keep him in the halves (I assume) - it will be in training:
So,
Work hard to improve his passing. Harry Smith did it, so it can be done.
Be more decisive in attack - you could see other players pulling up unsure of what was about to happen today.
Work on a series of planned attacking moves so that others aren't left guessing.

He is new in the halves so it won't come overnight.
He's got an enormous talent and it needs to be harnessed for the benefit of the team. We can't always rely
on flashes of inspiration to get us through - they're brilliant when they occur but the team needs a solid base.
With Bevan's talent, he should be dominating matches and that's not happening at the moment.
It was great today, although it took quite a while for the team to grow in confidence and then maybe we will not lose the games that we should have won like HKR & Wakefield. Confidence comes with winning and breeds more confidence.

[pearsy]

Good show by Wigan today once again a couple of silly try's given away again.Beter coverage by channel 4 than the Muppets on sky it's always good to see Helen Skelton

[moto748]

Broadly agree with the last few posts. Is French 'learning on the job'? Yes, I think he is. And I think he's got better in every match. He's been urged to kick less, and run more, which obviously makes sense with his wonderful footwork, but as I recall (haven't watched it back) he put in some pretty telling kicks today as well. And the end of the day, I think the point is, oppositions defences don't like it when he has the ball in his hands.

[widdenoldboy]

I thought it was a decent performance overall but we were a bit sluggish for most of the first half. Some of that may be down to the fact they had their 3 most dangerous middles on for most of that time. I thought once Amone and Mulhern were off the field our pack got on top.

Up to that point French was the only player getting us to where we needed to be. His kicking game was excellent. Unfortunately we still have a tendency to overplay before we've made the opposition work. KPP was guilty of this a couple of times but other players were to blame too. We're trying to create opportunities in our own half without making the defence work so instead of taking advantage of opportunities we were just taking risks.

We were better in the second half without being outstanding. Dupree looks to be an excellent addition to the team and I think Mago deserves huge credit for his performance today. Probably his best of the season. I think it was the Dupree try that was basically created by the Mago carry causing the defence to be out of shape the play before.

Cracking performance from Miski. Please stop suggesting we play him at second row or stand off or prop or on the moon and just be happy we've got a good, hard working winger who can finish and make strong carries.

Yes, the scoreline flatters us. Leigh lost their appetite for it in the second half and some of our tries came from luck rather than from free flowing play, but this was a derby game against a Leigh side that's playing much better than they were the last time we faced them.

I do have to pick up some negatives though. 18 points conceded still isn't good enough. I keep thinking we defend really well if teams put us under sustained pressure. We can be really resilient and organised. Our weakness seems to be when teams don't have much field position against us and then a break or a penalty puts them down our end and we concede really soft tries. It's like we don't have the concentration to go from attack to defence, whereas when the team is forced to defend for a more sustained period the concentration levels are much higher.

Cracking post from EEP and some good responses to it.

Fantastic game from Miski, from improving steadily he made a massive leap forwards today - tackling well, 2 intercepts, good finishing and now a deadly kicking game - kicked it 3 yards in total and created 2 tries!

[fozzieskem]

Good performance but let's not be too kind about Leigh that squad had their heads on the bus to wemberly and you know what good on them,you beat what's in front of you and bingo Wigan beat them well not a bad performance in the team but I suspect sterner tests await Wigan.

Oh and on the subject of Leigh I'm sure their season will end after wembley but we shall see

[Pbickerstaff]

The second half was turned when cust came off the bench
He was outstanding
O’Neil is going to suffer burn out
his performances have dropped in quality when playing 80 mins

[Charriots Offiah]

Good performance but let's not be too kind about Leigh that squad had their heads on the bus to wemberly and you know what good on them,you beat what's in front of you and bingo Wigan beat them well not a bad performance in the team but I suspect sterner tests await Wigan.

Oh and on the subject of Leigh I'm sure their season will end after wembley but we shall see

Spot on Fozzie.

[Charriots Offiah]

The second half was turned when cust came off the bench
He was outstanding
O’Neil is going to suffer burn out
his performances have dropped in quality when playing 80 mins

He won’t suffer burn out there is a lad called Leeming coming.