Who should Wigan sign?

[Owd Codger]

cpwigan as Head Coach!

[cpwigan]

cpwigan as Head Coach!

Already turned it down WW on two occasions. Sadly you were not on my list of prospective assistant coaches.

[nathan_rugby]

So for 2017 we are going to become even weaker assuming we just promote from within.

1 - Tomkins
2 - Manfredi
3 - Gelling
4 - Gildart
5 - New signing?

Back up?

- Bateman and Tomkins for centre
- Higginson?
- Tierney

Very weak considering we used to have Manfredi as a back up winger, Sarginson back up to Thornley/Gelling.

[Cherry_Warrior]

So for 2017 we are going to become even weaker assuming we just promote from within.

1 - Tomkins
2 - Manfredi
3 - Gelling
4 - Gildart
5 - New signing?

Back up?

- Bateman and Tomkins for centre
- Higginson?
- Tierney

Very weak considering we used to have Manfredi as a back up winger, Sarginson back up to Thornley/Gelling.

I have to disagree. I think it's stronger. You forgot to add Isa to the centres. Better than Thornley and Sarginson. Gildart is better than all of them. Charnley has been dire for 2 seasons, my nan on the wing would be an improvement on that form. Tomkins - goes without saying.

We don't really know how good the young lads are. The only big loss is Burgess and who is to say he won't be back here next season in that no.5 shirt. If it's him or Carney it's still miles better than Charnley.

[nathan_rugby]

So for 2017 we are going to become even weaker assuming we just promote from within.

1 - Tomkins
2 - Manfredi
3 - Gelling
4 - Gildart
5 - New signing?

Back up?

- Bateman and Tomkins for centre
- Higginson?
- Tierney

Very weak considering we used to have Manfredi as a back up winger, Sarginson back up to Thornley/Gelling.

I have to disagree. I think it's stronger. You forgot to add Isa to the centres. Better than Thornley and Sarginson. Gildart is better than all of them. Charnley has been dire for 2 seasons, my nan on the wing would be an improvement on that form. Tomkins - goes without saying.

We don't really know how good the young lads are. The only big loss is Burgess and who is to say he won't be back here next season in that no.5 shirt. If it's him or Carney it's still miles better than Charnley.

Willie Isa is not a good centre, mark my words.

I think we are getting weaker and weaker. Constantly losing good players, replacing them with youth who are good, then losing even more players and potentially replacing them with youth players who haven't even got first team experience.

I just think this season and next we may find we have cut things too fine.

[markill]

When Manfredi was a back-up we didn't really know what we had in him. Similar thing when Charnley was coming through too.

So I don't think we can write off the youngsters as being 'worse' than the youngsters of the past. We're basing how good they are on what they've done in the first team and not as unknown quantities they once were before that. The likes of Higginson are unknown quantities at the moment but may not be in 12 months.

[cpwigan]

When Manfredi was a back-up we didn't really know what we had in him. Similar thing when Charnley was coming through too.

So I don't think we can write off the youngsters as being 'worse' than the youngsters of the past. We're basing how good they are on what they've done in the first team and not as unknown quantities they once were before that. The likes of Higginson are unknown quantities at the moment but may not be in 12 months.

Which applies to Gildart. Agree with Mark 100%

[nathan_rugby]

One minute everyone complains that our owner is tight and we constantly replace quality with youth and the next everyone is saying we should trust the youth as they are currently unknown qualities and we should wait and see.

I really think replacing Sarginson and Charnley could be the final straw and we start to get found out.

[Wigan_forever1985]

People want a balance

The best balance we had was through madge but I feel like that was more coincidence than plan - we had the exciting youth in Tomkins and we had the class acts in finch and Hoffman along with the work horse reliables like coley

[Cherry_Warrior]

People want a balance

The best balance we had was through madge but I feel like that was more coincidence than plan - we had the exciting youth in Tomkins and we had the class acts in finch and Hoffman along with the work horse reliables like coley

Agree. And your point highlights something else. Coley wasn't a 'big name' signing but he did a very effective job and was as strong as an ox. I think sometimes when people mention big name signings they get blinded by the actual name as silly as that sounds.

I will tell you what i mean. We signed Andy Coley and the eyebrows were raised, from Salford, boring name.

We also signed Iafeta Paleaaesina, came from NZ Warriors and when you hear the name you think of a machine like Maori who will walk through defences, got everybody excited > failed to deliver, just used to take the ball in at pace and knock the odd defender over and was never fit.

I am quite happy with our recruitment and taking the odd gamble on 'cheaper options' some have worked out, Coley, Clubb, Flower some haven't Smith, Cross, James. We need to keep bleeding these youngsters through, it is what we do as a club. That is one of our major identities in the sport and we need to buy big every so often - Tomkins, Barrett, Fielden to keep that balance correct.

We need to get into our heads that Hoffman, Finch and Lima was a fluke and will probably never happen again until the cap laws are relaxed. We are a very consistent team. Our major failings under Wane is the disappointing last 2 Challenge Cup runs or lack of. Other than that everything is fine for me.