Are We Really That Bad?

[Wintergreen]

In some ways we are miles ahead of the great teams of the past. We are fitter and more scientifically organised. That has allowed your average Super League player to compete with the best 99% of the time. When our patterns come off we look fine. Against Saints and Cats we were steady but unspectacular and when we needed a plan B we seemed lost. The problem against Saints was that they attacked from the ptb and pushed us back whereas we ran across their line without finding or making a gap. When we played Cats several times they showed the value of direct running. Even Thornley was finding gaps. Why is it that on our own line players will run from dummy half but almost never when over half way? We just seen incapable of mixing it up without Williams or SOL.

Think the problem we couldn't cope with against Sts was Roby. He seems to have knocked 7 years off his age. If not for him, I reckon we would have won easily.

I've said it before, Roby is one of the very few (read less than 5) world class British players at the moment.

[catman]

You are right it is all about entertainment.

Which of the current crop of players do you after working hard all week look forward to seeing turn out on a Friday night. Which of the current crop gives you the feeling of anticipation that the next time they touch the ball they will do something outstanding, something that you will remember for years to come. Which of the current crop will be our kids hero's and inspire the great Wigan players of tomorrow. The answer to all these questions is very few of the current squad.
The current Wigan squad and coach staff all work to the best of their ability and can never be accused of not trying but the harsh truth we must face is they are an ordinary team coached by an average coach in a poor league. If you don't believe me watch the highlights dvds from the late 80s or early 90s it is head and shoulders above the current standard. Whether this has been caused by the salary cap, the NRL or any other reason we must face up to it.
If our club and our league is to have a future the standards and entertainment value must improve and they must do so quickly.

[ancientnloyal]

We are bad to watch, boring and predictable. Somehow we have remained 2nd but no wonder gates are declining and no atmosphere. We need quality of guard play. At the minute it is crap.

[morley pie eater]

The debate about standards, whether it's Wigan or RL in general, should take various factors into account:

*We tend to remember the best bits from the past.

*As we get older, we're less inclined to get excited (about anything).

*In Wigan's case, we had a golden age when we could buy all the best players and were full-time professionals playing part-time rs/semi-pros. This will never happen again.

*RL got many stars from union and, for a while, the Sterlings, Kennys and Maningas from the NRL. Now we lose our best players to union and the NRL.

As to falling crowds:

Football/Soccer dominates the media more than in the past. Cricket used to be the summer sport, but now they'll reportedly have thousands of empty seats for the Test series against India.

Soccer's dominance influences young kids in which sport they support, and the lack of coverage makes it harder to maintain enthusiasm for RL supporters. At one time, in the week before a Wigan-Saints derby, 'everybody' would be talking about it. I suspect it's true for a much smaller number of people nowadays, and press coverage of League, outside of a few places like Wigan and Hull, is almost non-existant.

People like Leneghan, Koucash and Hetherington are working against this background. No-one has all the answers, and there may not even be any answers, but at least these few are trying to find a way forward. The NRL seems to only care about the NRL. Nobody else is going to help. Many supporters are happy to sit on the sidelines and blame somebody/anybody. If there was an easy answer we'd have found it by now.

[josie andrews]

Morley, I think you made a mistake in naming Hethrington as trying to make RL more popular! All he wants to do is be a big fish in a ever decreasing pond iMO!

[thegimble]

We are bad to watch, boring and predictable. Somehow we have remained 2nd but no wonder gates are declining and no atmosphere. We need quality of guard play. At the minute it is crap.

I agree.


One point on standards not in a long time have England or GB been close to winning the world cup against Australia. Now if the standards of SL has dropped that much and attendances stagnated then why have we caught up with the much vaunted Australia side.

I know a number of the players we have plays in the NRL but not even that would have stopped the Australians 20 years ago. But here is the one I do not get the NRL is actually growing and if the quality is as good as some believe here. Then why were England so close in November in winning the world cup in Australia when SL standards is crap compared to 20 years ago. When we would get destroyed by them 9 times out of 10.

And not even the last WC the last 4 nations England were robbed from knocking the Australians out. England beat NZ often now as well. So if our standards has dropped so has theirs.


Just proves that you can market crap if you have good marketing around it.

[JUKESAYS]

We are bad to watch, boring and predictable. Somehow we have remained 2nd but no wonder gates are declining and no atmosphere. We need quality of guard play. At the minute it is crap.

I agree.


One point on standards not in a long time have England or GB been close to winning the world cup against Australia. Now if the standards of SL has dropped that much and attendances stagnated then why have we caught up with the much vaunted Australia side.

I know a number of the players we have plays in the NRL but not even that would have stopped the Australians 20 years ago. But here is the one I do not get the NRL is actually growing and if the quality is as good as some believe here. Then why were England so close in November in winning the world cup in Australia when SL standards is crap compared to 20 years ago. When we would get destroyed by them 9 times out of 10.

And not even the last WC the last 4 nations England were robbed from knocking the Australians out. England beat NZ often now as well. So if our standards has dropped so has theirs.


Just proves that you can market crap if you have good marketing around it.

Or you can find fault and talk yourself down and criticise everything and how it was always so much better "Back in the day", slag off new signings, twist everything administrators say to fit an agenda and in general convince yourself that everything's rubbish.

The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

(PS that isn't aimed at you personally)

I have a few issues with some of the rules/interpretations that the refs have to work with and the way the game has become all about finding a level that everyone can play at rather than promoting excellence
HOWEVER
AS others have said our pool of say 30 international players is as good as at any time in the last 40 years to compete with Australia (can't go back further than mid 70s).
I would just argue that in the 80s/90s/00s we had 5-10 truly world class players and then the rest in terms of ability dropped off a cliff and we couldn't back that up.

It probably reflects SL that overall the teams are better/more competitive I.e. less of them get less real hammerings and can compete but the top Teams are not as good as they were as little as 8/10 years ago

[morley pie eater]

Morley, I think you made a mistake in naming Hethrington as trying to make RL more popular! All he wants to do is be a big fish in a ever decreasing pond iMO!

Josie, I understand where you're coming from. I'm not sure Koucash was right either, and maybe the jury is still out on Leneghan. My point is they seem aware of the problems or challenges facing the game and come up with ideas to address these. Some of the people at RLHQ seem to be jobsworths on fat salaries and even fatter pay-offs.

[Southern Softy]

The question for me is - would I rather watch the McGuire side or the Wane side?
Sadly,it's an easy answer and some of it is that the players have got older together but they are still (mostly) of an age when their best years could well be ahead of them.
We are predictable - we are slow in attack and occasionally amateurish in defence. The reason we are 2nd at the moment is because the superior early-season fitness meant that we could snatch victory from defeat in the last part of the game.
True, we have a lot of injuries (Sky - please note for once) and really we only look confident and capable of beating anyone when we have our very best team out.
So, we're not that bad (we could be Widnes, for example) but we're not going to be good until we get a new coach who can introduce pace into our game. That, I'm afraid, means that there are some players who are just going to have to move on or play a different role and our reserve strength is going to have to improve radically. We don't have 2 half-backs who can both run a match; we don't have a loose-forward for when SOL is not there and we need better back-up for rotation during matches.
I think it really does depend on who comes in as coach. If it comes from within - I'm not hopeful.

[thegimble]

We are bad to watch, boring and predictable. Somehow we have remained 2nd but no wonder gates are declining and no atmosphere. We need quality of guard play. At the minute it is crap.

I agree.


One point on standards not in a long time have England or GB been close to winning the world cup against Australia. Now if the standards of SL has dropped that much and attendances stagnated then why have we caught up with the much vaunted Australia side.

I know a number of the players we have plays in the NRL but not even that would have stopped the Australians 20 years ago. But here is the one I do not get the NRL is actually growing and if the quality is as good as some believe here. Then why were England so close in November in winning the world cup in Australia when SL standards is crap compared to 20 years ago. When we would get destroyed by them 9 times out of 10.

And not even the last WC the last 4 nations England were robbed from knocking the Australians out. England beat NZ often now as well. So if our standards has dropped so has theirs.


Just proves that you can market crap if you have good marketing around it.

Or you can find fault and talk yourself down and criticise everything and how it was always so much better "Back in the day", slag off new signings, twist everything administrators say to fit an agenda and in general convince yourself that everything's rubbish.

The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

(PS that isn't aimed at you personally)

I have a few issues with some of the rules/interpretations that the refs have to work with and the way the game has become all about finding a level that everyone can play at rather than promoting excellence
HOWEVER
AS others have said our pool of say 30 international players is as good as at any time in the last 40 years to compete with Australia (can't go back further than mid 70s).
I would just argue that in the 80s/90s/00s we had 5-10 truly world class players and then the rest in terms of ability dropped off a cliff and we couldn't back that up.

It probably reflects SL that overall the teams are better/more competitive I.e. less of them get less real hammerings and can compete but the top Teams are not as good as they were as little as 8/10 years ago

I agree totally.

Just find it funny people moan our SL is crap but we have caught Australia up. Point i was making and my final comment was pure sarcasm because some on here point to the NRL as been far superior to SL. If SL 20 years was so good why did wr lose to them very often.

Problem is we are a bit borong to watch now . So that has to mean SL is crap. SL is more competative now and that is a good thing.