Wigan squad to face Saints

[Charriots Offiah]

As for our youngsters, I agree with some of the comments upthread, KPP is clearly a real talent, who Wigan should do their damnest to hang on to. Shorrocks is a useful squad player who can fill in at a few positions, but has been over-played. Havard is a bit of an enigma; there's a great player in there, but I'm not sure it's ever coming out. Smithies, Partington and Byrne, I'm less and and less convinced about. And reluctantly, I'm putting Smith in that category too.

I think you need to look beyond our young players Moto, our seasoned players were/have been extremely poor. The young guns need some direction they are not getting any. Many supporters criticised Williams when he signed a marquee deal and his form dipped, I don’t see many saying the same about Bateman who has been a shadow of his former self.

[moto748]

Oh, sure, I fully agree. There has been nowhere near enough support from senior players.

[CheshireWarrior]

Certainly not the performance I was expecting yesterday!

To me, we seemed a little flat, without the intensity and pace (I expected for derby day).

Our inability to create ANYTHING is so alarming and it only highlights how much of a HUGE loss Jackson Hastings will be as mainly everything goes through him!

Youth players (pack), for me, KPP, Shorrocks and Partington work very hard imo (regardless of size). I don't think we've seen the best this season of Smithies or Havard.

As for experience, said all season, we have missed SOL's on field leadership. Faz leads from the front, who else does (week in week out), who is considered experienced?

For posters, who have highlighted we missed Sam Powell, that says it all too! Hooker on the bench and start Shorrocks at 9?

Worrying thing now for me is our remaining fixtures, including yesterday, very difficult run ahead and hard to see where we pick points up.

Nothing exceptional about Stains at all yesterday too!

[EagleEyePie]

I honestly don't see why criticism is coming the way of the younger players. They put in the effort yesterday but they aren't ever going to be a match for senior forwards at their best.

It staggers me that people are writing off players who are 20 and already playing regularly in Super League because we lost a game against a far better team. We shouldn't have a starting pack full of 20 and 21 year old's. That's the bottom line. That's the problem. The coach has decided these players are guaranteed starters in the first team when really they shouldn't be. None of them deserve to be written off yet. Forwards more than any other players need time to develop and improve. Unfortunately there's never really been an opportunity to take these youngsters out of the team.

The place to point the finger last night is at the senior players. Shorrocks was everywhere in defence last night - he put in an excellent performance but that's the sort of thing Bateman would do. But last night what was Bateman actually doing? He was getting embroiled in the pettiest of stuff. The first sin bin was ridiculous but boy is it embarrassing if he thinks a tiny little nudge with the foot is worth losing his rag. Then a sin bin for dissent. Stupid stuff. He should be the one leading but he wasn't.

Isa is one of our most experienced players and he was acting like a lunatic. If Partington or Smithies carried on like that people would be saying they are too hot headed and we should get rid. Isa's 32 years old and he was running around trying to get himself sin binned. It was obvious what was going to happen about 20 minutes before he finally did get sin binned but no way was Lam going to save him from it because apparently Isa is the greatest thing since sliced bread. In the last derby game, who was acting like an idiot and lucky not to be sent off? Willie Isa! I honestly don't know why we're talking about giving him a new contract. He's not good enough to play in his preferred position. That's why he's not playing there. He's done okay filling in at centre but if it's a centre we need then it's a centre we should sign. Rather than just stick with a liability. But Isa will get a new 3 year contract because he's really nice off the field and that's what matters to Radlinski.

It's not just the senior players that were playing that let us down. Singleton should have been starting that game and giving us more experience in the pack, but he's still serving his 3 match ban for a moment of utter stupidity, not long having returned from a 2 match ban for a moment of utter stupidity. We're not talking bad tackles in the heat of the moment, or bad technique in a tackle. Nope. Headbutting and punching. One of our senior players. And the least said about our most senior prop the better. Clubb wouldn't have been any help given how weak his defence was against Hull KR but to be fair the fault there lies with recruitment.

Leuluai and Powell. Two senior players whose performances this season have been well below par. Smith has been given loads of criticism this year but look at it this way. He's got 12 assists this year, only 4 behind Hastings who is one of the best halves in the competition. Leuluai has finished the season on 0 assists.

Last night we weren't ever going to beat Saints. Not with the pack we fielded. It would have taken a shocking performance beyond anything we've seen in years from that Saints team for us to get the victory.

I don't think there's enough quality in the team in the right places for us to get much stronger this year, but I do think there are enough experienced players in the team who could play much better than they have been doing and provide some improvement on our performances.

The worry is we aren't signing the right players. Two more project players coming into the front row. No sign of a replacement for Hastings which would leave Field as the replacement. Yes, our young players might show further improvement next year but it looks like they'll just have other problems to deal with.

[Southern Softy]

And I thought HKR was bad!
Credit to Shorrocks for tackling his blood to water in the first half and then having to come back in the second half and try to do it again. By the end he looked exhausted. In the few minutes he was on, Bullock looked the only player to have a bit of go-forward.
And that's the end of the highlights.
I think the ref just had enough of the ill-disciplined rabble that was the Wigan team and binned Bateman for dissent as a kind of attempted deterrent .
Isa should get a massive ban for his actions and the club should fine him as well.
Congratulations to Coote for his Oscar-winning performance as a man claiming to be concussed by an open hand to the face and bad luck that the ref refused to buy any more of his antics when he came back to the pitch.
Video nasty of the year must be Bentley. What a horrible player, even worse than LMS.

We will probably win against Leeds who seem to have nearly as many problems as us but it won't solve anything. In fact, it may prolong the agony.

How on earth has it all come to this in so short a time?

[Caboosegg]

I always presume those who take Aim at Isa don't actually watch him in matches, be interesting to see his metres per carry vs our props as he currently seems to make more impact for me. His actions last night Boiled down to frustration and the fact that players started taking things into there own hands because the ref was more bothered about players telling him he's wrong than what actually went on.

Isa should have been subbed after he got away with his tackle so he could calm down, although it's bad for a senior player to lose his cool, its equally as bad that the coach just ignored it was happening.

But we shall see if we would miss him or not if he left as I imagine he will be missing a few games between all three incidents I saw before I turned off with 15 min to go.


Watching that match last night though is making we question if I can be bothered attending any more games this year I didn't expect to get the full value out of my ST this year anyway but I atleast expect some valve in the form of on field performances.

Watching Wigan at the moment is like choosing to go bare bottomed down a slide made of sandpaper.

On the face of it it looks fun but the experience Is painful and leaves you with days of pain after.

[Barney841]

I’m wondering have players turned against Lam?
Like it’s been said how have we gone this bad?
There is something not right at the moment at the club and it needs sorting ASAP

[pedro]

The average age of our starting pack yesterday was 22 and that was with Farrell pulling it up, that’s crazy to expect them to hold out saints older more experienced pack

[fozzieskem]

Interesting to,listen to Paul Scunthorpe at the end of the game on sky (I couldn’t watch it again) he almost had Carney at a loss for words when he said “he’s unsure wether these guys are ready”when talking about Byrne,Smithees and Partingron,finally someone has come out and said what quite a few on this board that this bunch of lads have suffered by being played to much and no reserve grade for them to learn the game,yes COVID has played its part but that’s an excuse it was about the usual short term saving money.

It may be that these boys havereached their level who knows but expecting them week after week to go out and try and play is gross mismanagement by all concerned.

Is a seems to have games like this every so often he loses his rag that he usually manages to tunnel into a positive aspect he should have been hauled off long before his binning but it summed up the current ineptitude at Wigan.

[pedro]

I’m still baffled by bateman’s first sun binning, the ref did him for taking the law into his own hands, well, someone had to as the red played on it was only looked at due to the scuffle that happened after it…..