Maurice Lindsay - What do Wiganers realy think of him?

[proud_pie_eater]

It does my head in that Maurice Lindsay gives away players that are great talent and stars for he future! Why is it that people still praise him for being such a good chairman? What do people realy think of the man?

[ChrisA]

Here we go again, so many people have said this so many times on this board. You are refering to Briscoe, Luke Robinson, Mark Smith ? well what the hell lets go back to Neil Turley as people where saying why did we let him go, then what about Mike Forshaw ? he went on to have an immense career, including G.B hounours. Simple fact is that you cant keep everybody can you.

We could be here for hours naming all the players we have let go who have gone on to star for other clubs, but its pointless, every club lets players go for one reason or another and that player goes onto shine for someone else.
Like I have said before we will have 13+ young players next season who have come through our youth setup, so please dont embarass yourself by jumping on the bandwagon. We have kept far more than we have let go.

Merry Xmas

[warrior till i die]

i like lindsay. The reason he gets rid of the players is because of the salary cap. and yeh stop critisizing our chairman back him!

[the grinch]

proud pie is entitled to his/her opinion and it would be a bad thing if everyone agreed on everything. but ive always said maurice has always done what he thinks is best and if you look at our squad and how manny more season ticket holders we are attracting you can see he is doing something right.ive got a good feeling that next season wigan will be a real force again in the game.

[Mike]

the grinch posted:
ive got a good feeling that next season wigan will be a real force again in the game.

If you look at this years and last years squad - are we really any stronger this season? I'm not sure, it could go either way - on balance, I think our squad has the same level of abililty - but a lot less experience. Will it be enough to take us up to the Grand Final winning level? We'll have to wait and see...

Davico + SeuSeu vs C Smith and O'Connor - not much to pick between these pairs of props. Smith is the best we've had for a long while, so one of Davico and SeuSeu will have to perform very well to replace him.

Vaealiki vs Hodgson - Hodgy underperformed last year and weas given the chop, but as far as I can tell Vaealiki doesn't come with a huge reputation as a centre. He may struggle to fully recover his form after exactly the same injury Hodgson suffered before his drop in form.

Moran vs Lam - Dennis Moran looked good at London and he is likely to be available more next year than Lam was last year. However, before he came to Wigan, Lam had performed in the NRL and internationally - Moran has not. Having said this, Moran may well be a very good signing as he has been London's stand out player for the last several years.

Godwin vs M Smith - not much to go on here. Smith was a solid performer off the bench, but never looked like he would break through. Maybve Godwin has more potential - time will tell.
Oldies:
Out: Connolly - one season too far for Gary last year.
Out: Cassidy and O'Connor - may have had one good season left in them, but time to move on, on balance.
Out: Robinson - supprising to say the least. Perhaps there is truth in all the rumours surrounding this one.

Youngsters:
In: Colye - meant to be good, I can't say I've seen him.
In: Prescott and Hargreaves - looked too young and not strong enough for super league last season.
In: Beswick and Hansen - Seemed like good prospoects last year. Will be good seeing them develop when used (hopefully sparingly) next season.

[proud_pie_eater]

In my opinion, if I am allowed to express it without being critisised, it is only the older generation that still has total respect for the man. Many players and fans alike have a dislike for him and although I do give him credit for probobly the best signings in superleague this year, I had to express my anger at the release of Luke Robinson who is already an established player in the league whereas players such as Shaun Briscoe where an unknown mistake for Wigan!

[robjoenz]

nitsua posted:
It does my head in when someone like yourself make such stupid remarks about Maurice Lindsay. Do you ever put your brain into action before opening your mouth.

Maurice Lindsay thinks and breaths Wigan Rugby League and always tries do the very best for the club. OK like any other person he can make mistakes, but on the whole he has done more for the club than any other Chairman.

Does my head in when people have a go because others voice a different opinion to theirs.

I have posted how I feel about Lindsay in the past. I am not his greatest fan. I admit we have a good first 13 but worryingly little strength in depth. I think Mike makes some very good points. Two tried and tested props for one tried and tested and one that hasn't quite reached the heights Smithy and Terry had at representative level. Moran for Lam which some may argue is a fair swap, some argue Morans tackling doesn't live up to his attacking play, but Lam didn't really have a fantastic season due to injury. Vaealiki I think has something to prove in SL after having a relatively poor season in NRL (so I am told) due to injury.

Overall I would say we've a team as strong as last season only with less depth. We had a centre crisis and then a prop crisis which really cost us, consequently we took a backwards step from the season before. There is more of a worry this season that injuries will mean playing inexperienced youth game in game out running the risk of 'burning them out.'

When you think who's responsibility it is for selecting a squad and setting up a pay scale and making contract offers you look to the chairman. I don't feel we have done as well as we could have done and we seem to be getting further behind Leeds and Bradford. With the exception of the Ellis -v- Reardon/Langley saga Caisley and Hetherington seem to be doing a better job than Lindsay. I'm not saying I know who can do a better job but I feel it's time to look elsewhere, the salary cap climate is very different to the one in which Lindsays' praises are being sung.

[GeoffN]

Correct, Rob! Whatever good Maurice has done for the club is in the distant past. At the end of the day he should be judged on results, and as I've said before, we've won virtually nothing in the last 10 years. Rebuilding is fine, in theory, but I'd sack a builder that took this long to finish a job.

[DaveO]

robjoenz posted:
With the exception of the Ellis -v- Reardon/Langley saga Caisley and Hetherington seem to be doing a better job than Lindsay. I'm not saying I know who can do a better job but I feel it's time to look elsewhere, the salary cap climate is very different to the one in which Lindsays' praises are being sung.

It certainly is different and whether or not he is any good at running the ship within the new rules people seem to expect him to assemble a team with strength in depth when the rules simply don't allow it.

You can have 20 players paid more then £20K a year and that is your lot.

The team that is successful next season will be the one that is lucky with injuries. If Leeds had our injury problems last year they would not have won it, simple as that. They would not have functioned anywhere like as well without McQuire for weeks on end or three senior props missing with one of them forced out of the game permanently.

I mentioned in another thread about a game I saw from 1991/2, Saints v Wigan cup semi final and sure enough the Wigan squad was awesome. But so was the Saints squad and watching that game the level of play was higher then I saw from most games last season. Only games like Wigan v Leeds at the JJB were in the same league.

You can't have experienced cover in every position because you are not allowed to pay a reserve team the wages required to employ them all.

Look at Leeds in the half back slot, they have Burrow, Dunneman and McQuire and if two of those three are injured you are talking about Sinfield coming in from loose forward and someone else taking over at loose.

IMO we are better placed for cover at half back than Leeds are with Moran, Orr, Coyle and O'Loughlin.

If you add to that the fact we are now playing in the same season as the NRL getting players here is much harder than it was as they won't give up an NRL careeer to come here in their prime unless things are not right at home (e.g. C Smith who had fallen out with the judiciary).

I also am pretty sure Betts will say things like "We need another centre" but I he can't just say "I want so and so as he is a top centre" because the player probably won't be available. So it is then up to ML to go and find "a" centre, the best available.

At the time we signed him that player was Vaekeli or however you spell it.

The rules are different now and all clubs have got to compromise their squads somewhere and how they do that and what luck they have with injuries are what will determine where the trophies go all else being equal.

Someone posted a team list showing who could play where and that shows how quite a few of our players can play in different positions. This is now forced on teams because of the 20/20 rule and personally I don't think it does a great deal for the overall standard of the game in the UK but that is how squads must be these days.

Dave

[pedro]

As far as im concerned the game of rugby league owes ML a lot not just Wigan. He was responsible for making Wigan into a business and other clubs followed suit. He is responsible for making rugby league a fully professional sport.

If this hadn't have been done Rugby League in the current sporting environment would have gone!

Also when he left Wigan and went heading up SL Europe the game went forward with the introduction of summer rugby and a larger input from SKY. Since he left this post and returned to Wigan the sport has gone no-where. So like it was said he is a businessman which you need to be to run a successful club.

But, MO does live and breathe Wigan and if it wasnt for him we'd have still been pushing up the daisies in div2 in 1985!!