highland convert wrote:Well theres an interesting thought. Wigan may have finished third two years on the trot but they have been taken out by the GF winners. Arguably they are level with stains :eusa10:
That is not the record of a loser.
Jim
At the risk of being accused of having a go at you for daring to disagree, I will.
You get no pots for finishing third and if you really think the last two seasons where we have finished third represent any form of meaningful achievement all I can say is you are easily pleased and there are lies, damned lies and statistics.
I apologise in advance for bringing the tone of the site down by being negative and unimpressed by the last two season Wigan have had. I was more impressed with 2006 to be honest. The way we played after Nobel arrived has not been consistently reproduced in 2007 & 2008.
No Dave, consistancy is the problem. Is that down to NOble. He has produced a team that can. For some reason they don't on occation. For the second year in a row we finished on a high. Timing has a lot to do with sport. Leeds were unbeatable, they fell back. St Helens were unbeatable, they fell back. A lot of sport is timing. No team can get to and maintain the top line. Wigan started well and fell away but they came back. This year the drop was more dramatic. but the comeback was equally as dramatic. I am a realist. A team from relegation zone to third two years in a row is a statistic on its own. Players change and teams improve/ slide. Therefore statistics over two years are false. Cats are a prime example. Matching their record this year with last will alter every statistic on the card. Next year with 14 teams and a more level playing field the ups and downs will be more accurate. I do predict a better year next year because I feel the team are better placed to play expansive rugby and playing home and away without the extra games against top teams (except Edinburgh). Smith could prove better than Barrett. Mathers still has a long way to go to recover his form as a fullback but it is coming. The missed catches at Leeds I am sure were down to the lighting. Webb knew that and played for it. You cannot catch what you cannot see. However it makes a better story to say he is useless. That he is not. I am perplexed re Colbon. I can make up excuses but like many here I do not rate him. There has to be a reason. I can't make one up. Within the team set up he must add something we can't see.Probaby have to wait until Barrett retires and writes his memoirs.
Jim
Wigan can be in the religation zone but every game will be a derby match. Their history sets them up every time. Like Man U they are the team to beat. No matter how often stains or leeds win the silverwear they will never atain the aura that is Wigan. Every team that plays them lifts a notch in that determination. That to me is more important than the silverwear. That is what sets them appart. The Bradford game to me is more important than the cup. The game will long be remembered after everyone has forgotten who won the GF that year. The Cats game this season will remain in the memories. When the team is down and beat and written off as no hopers and come through thats what the game is made of. Silverwear is icing on the cake admittedly but enjoy the cake even if it is not iced. Yes there was games where they did not turn up. Yes there was games where they lost the plot. But there was also games where our hearts were racing, our chest were out and our heads held high. Look at Wgan when they lost the playoff to leeds and look to Stains when they lost to leeds. Wigan lost the game but left unbowed. Stains were broken. Long and KFC head down defeated. Next season are you walking in the turnstyle with head up on down? Those last games in the run in left you with a team to be proud of. I certainly hope the ripping apart has run its course. As I said on another thread this site is all we have until Boxing day.
Jim
i think what you would have to say is we have for the last to years only been beaten by the winner of the GF on our playoff run. Leeds and Stains are a country mile ahead of most of SL and on the last two years we are sitting 3rd which i suppose isn't bad. Im still undecided on noble, sometimes his choices are perplexing and i cant see the logic behind them.
People bang on about consistency and i would tend to agree but haven't we been consistently the 3rd best team for the last 2 years if you look at the results?
Thing is i just dont know with Noble he hasn't wowed me and made me want to believe in him but he hasn't exactly thoroughly disappointed me either i guess he reflects the Wigan squad mediocre at best
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure
We are the 3rd Best team on paper IMO. We finish 3rd in the play off competition. We are far from the 3rd best team in the League Leaders Rd by Rd competition. Indeed, we are sometimes awful. Despite being the 3rd best team on paper, we have failed to reach a Challenge Cup Final during this time. IMO = UNDERACHIEVEMENT
2009 will see Leeds improve, I believe St Helens will decline slightly, Catalan will maintain their improvement. Huddersfield will improve significantly. Wigan? I honestly do not know. Far too many unanswered questions.
Underachievement. Every team in capable of loosing. Argably the team learned to play togther when Barrett was off injured. They started to win. When Barrett came back he had a different set of players around him. He had players that believed they could play rugby at that standard. The ball no longer went automatically to Barrett. Teams had to cover the width of the field to stop us.It was no longer shut down Barrett shut down Wigan. The resulting success was clear to be seen. I don't believe if Barrett had not been injured the success enjoyed at the end of the season would have been as good. It is this success they carry into next season.
Jim
highland convert wrote:Underachievement. Every team in capable of loosing. Argably the team learned to play togther when Barrett was off injured. They started to win. When Barrett came back he had a different set of players around him. He had players that believed they could play rugby at that standard. The ball no longer went automatically to Barrett. Teams had to cover the width of the field to stop us.It was no longer shut down Barrett shut down Wigan. The resulting success was clear to be seen. I don't believe if Barrett had not been injured the success enjoyed at the end of the season would have been as good. It is this success they carry into next season.
Jim
What you are saying makes no sense because they achieved exactly the same the previous season when you believe that the team was inhibited by Trent. So that does not add up.
Trent was never going to have it as easy in his second season. In his first he scored plenty of tries showing and going. That avenue was cut off by teams knowing him better. I believe Fletcher was a bigger loss that people realise. However, we had a far better centre, we had a team more used to each other, a year older and supposedly most importantly a coach who had been in position for longer and so should improve the team. Yet we made no progress.
The owner publically insulting the players machismo, bringing extra players in mid season, Feka getting fitter and the return of Hock from suspension = a saving grace 3rd place in the play offs.
Wigan_forever19 85 wrote:i think what you would have to say is we have for the last to years only been beaten by the winner of the GF on our playoff run. Leeds and Stains are a country mile ahead of most of SL and on the last two years we are sitting 3rd which i suppose isn't bad.
All it says is we have not been good enough to get to the final and have done better than the other teams who also didn't get there. It doesn't strike me as something to cheer about even when taken in isolation and ignoring everything else (which is what the pro-Noble fans seem to want to do).
What finishing third doesn't do (and this is the key point) is say ANYTHING about the standard of rugby being played by the team in absolute terms.
It is improving the standard of rugby played by Wigan that will take us from a third place team some distance off the top two, to a team winning trophies. Not looking down on the rest of the league form 3rd thinking this means were are truly competitive with Leeds and Saints when it matters.
What I have not seen is any improvement in the standard of rugby in 2008 over that dished up in 2007. So I don't see how we have improved the quality of our play in absolute terms, which is what we need to do to win things and surely the responsibility for that is no one else's but Nobles.
What worried me was that it took IL to come out and say something to make the players to change there attitudes, surely that should have been Nobles job? The other question is why weren't the players performing to the best of there abilities anyway? Even if they don't like Noble they should still put 100% into every game for the fans, I'm not convinced that has always been the case.
Do you think Noble was the only problem? I think his tactics are definitely one of them.
El Bobbers wrote:What worried me was that it took IL to come out and say something to make the players to change there attitudes, surely that should have been Nobles job? The other question is why weren't the players performing to the best of there abilities anyway? Even if they don't like Noble they should still put 100% into every game for the fans, I'm not convinced that has always been the case.
Do you think Noble was the only problem? I think his tactics are definitely one of them.
It's not so much is Noble the only problem (i.e questionable tactics etc) but that it's his job to sort the problems out whatever they may be. As you say things only started to happen after IL blew a gasket.
Sometimes I got the impression Noble was commenting as an observer of whatever poor performance had just happened rather than someone directly involved. It was as if he'd said what the team needed to do and when it didn't work out it was as if he was saying "well it wasn't my fault". Hard to express in plain text but something along those lines if you get my drift.
:eusa10:
