Wigan squad for Leeds (SLR5)

[SLG Wiganer]

So - where does the "blame" lie?

Squarely on Peet as the Head Coach. His reading of the game seems a little muddled this year. Use of the bench is terrible and unfair on those doing the hard work. We are lacking variety, partly because of injury but partly because the only time we move away from a gameplan is Smith kicking on the third tackle. Where's the cross-field kicks to Nsemba or some scrum plays that put people into space? It's all a bit under cooked and the Vegas trip has played havoc with conditioning. We've lost games by 1, 2 and 4 points so there's some mitigation but dig deeper and there's a hell of a lot to work on.

[DaveO]

Last season we had isa and cooper in the forwards.We were reasonably lucky with the injuries to the backs as we had limited cover there.This season we are minus them two forwards and have started without oneill and havard.Surely we need a signing or two to just add a bit of pressure on the players who seem cemented in the team.My big question is to WHY we start players and then say they wernt fit or are carrying injuries after a loss?We never seem to say this when we win

We lost Isa in April and Cooper in July so they did not provide cover for long. As I said previously playing Mago if ill was very strange when we had an alternative.

If the squad has players suffering from a bug Peet would take a lot less flak if he said the squad is affected by illness and so named a 21 with a lot of reserve players. I am also not sure what good it does playing players who are unwell.

So he and the team end up with a lot of criticism for him doing stuff like that an not using the bench and the ream looking flat.

[Wiganer Ted]

We don't know what's going on though!
Last week Bevan was reported as having an illness, this week it was Paddy.
Miski pulls up in the warm up.
Who knows what's going on?

Thought the lads out there did the best they could under very trying and impossible circumstances.
To lose by 2 points after a freak try after Hall heading the ball is tough luck. Thought after that Saint's incident 20 years or so ago a team couldn't score if a ball had been headed.
Maybe the rule has changed. Maybe the officials had never heard of the rule.

[josie andrews]

Peet was proud of that performance apparently……

And he should be.

Yes we didn't win & we were far from our best but the squad is going through a fair bit of adversity at the moment.

In the past couple of weeks we have lost the best full-back in the league & our first-choice right edge wing/centre pairing to injury. One of those also being our regular goal-kicker.
There have been numerous illness issues amongst the squad also - most notably Mago & French who apparantly have hardly trained, if at all, over the past 2 weeks.

These are not excuses but they are definite reasons as to why we aren't playing at our absolute best. There are obviously other reasons too - some players aren't playing at their full potential, some in-game decisions are also sometimes questionable from the outside.

But we are by no means 'miles off' & I for one, is very confident for the rest of the season.

Good post Kate

[josie andrews]

Importance of beating Wigan

I'm in awe of them as a team. They're so professional and so good. They keep fighting and never look flustered. They've been together a long time and have had minimal changes to their roster. They're a very good side. They came out and wouldn't be disappointed with how they played because they played well. The first half they made two errors and we made three. It was a bit of attrition.

Brad Arthur

https://shorturl.at/6HdMS

[Charriots Offiah]

French to halves Eckersley to fullback

French has got to play 6, the golden rule in rugby league is that your best players have got to handle the ball more often than the rest of the team. Eckersley played well, we are going to have to play Hodgkinson at fullback. Farrimond was very poor tonight but, to be fair, he is another Smith not a Bevan.i

[fozzie58]

The season starts for me on Good Friday but please stop with these stupid flights of fancy that clearly played havoc with the squad and where they should be fitness wise.

[Charriots Offiah]

Did Byrne come back on for another spell? Dupree and Mago were OK but didn't get big minutes - whats with Forber warming the bench for 80? No wonder Hill is unsettled...

Ecky and Douglas showed some real grit and we need to blood the youngsters when we can - don't wait until we really need them and they are undercooked. Hodkinson needs a run at FB with French back to SO,

I think Byrne had only one spell but he's hardly done enough to justify getting longer minutes. Same with Dupree who I thought was awful last week. Mago apparently has been unwell for a bit so I can understand a short spell for him. Unfortunately Thompson and Ellis were below par and when that happens we need others to step up.

Forber is another who hasn't made the most of the opportunities that he's had so I'm not surprised Matt Peet was less inclined to play him. You want to bring players on if they can make an impact and unfortunately Forber hasn't shown that so far this year.

I was worried when I saw Farrimond, Eckersley and Douglas on the same edge but I thought they did really well. Eckersley in particular was making some good reads. It's just a shame Douglas made such a crucial error as I thought he did well otherwise.

So Byrne, Mago and Forber not being good enough (in a nushell) are the reason why Peet only used 5 out of 8 substitutions and didn’t play Forber at all?

I think if you pick 17 players you need to play them as you can’t expect the 14 you think are good enough to keep going for most of the 80 minutes in the modern game. They are the 17 you have so you use the less good ones to spell the others.

It was poor game management from MP, much like last week.

[Charriots Offiah]

Think theres some major over reaction here we scored two decent tries gave them two one of which was ridiculous Leeds did not deserve those points. Its clear Bev at FB is easier to defend but should have won that . Im not sure Connor passed backwards all game . Walters was great I thought as I thought was Leeming again seems I'm in the minority there .... Jai's scan was clear . Not pressing the panic button just yet it happens. Stop talking about Vegas its done sick of hearing it Warrington beat Stains last night.

Agree with every word.

Also agreed with Wilkin (for once). Wigan's 2nd half v Hull was bad. Tonight's performance was not a problem, we're on our way back and will be in the mix at the end of the season.

I’m confident we will be in the mix but we need to start learning from our mistakes.

[Charriots Offiah]

As I said earlier on, our pack is not playing to its full potential right now. Thompson was average, Ellis had a poor game and none of our other props take charge and create a change when those two aren't at their best. We don't get anywhere near enough from Byrne, Dupree and Mago at the moment given their relative position in the squad.

It also doesn't help that French at fullback keeps him out of the game too much. It's fine if you've got a talented half who can balance the team on the other side and help us get the ball to French in the right areas but Farrimond was poor today and didn't have any influence on the game. We need someone who can hit the ground running and I'd genuinely consider Hodkinson at fullback and French in the halves if we can't get more out of Farrimond. It's not entirely his fault that our pack aren't dominat, but you have to make the most of the cards you've been dealt and at the moment our pack isn't dominating.

Did Byrne come back on for another spell? Dupree and Mago were OK but didn't get big minutes - whats with Forber warming the bench for 80? No wonder Hill is unsettled...

Ecky and Douglas showed some real grit and we need to blood the youngsters when we can - don't wait until we really need them and they are undercooked. Hodkinson needs a run at FB with French back to SO,

Mago was very poor, I don’t know if he is still ill. Most of our forwards want to pass the ball rather than take a hit up. We have quite a bit to fix up.