My Hopes

[ChrisA]

The signing of Millward as coach is one that I agree with, Lindays has stated the exact reasons that i stated at the start of the season. That he is to young at the moment and is not ready for the Wigan job. I think Lindsay knows he does have potential, but not the knowledge and experience yet to get us through this difficult time. No matter whos fault it is, we are in a hole, and Millward has the knowledge and will to win to get us out of it.

Ok these are things I think, and what I hope happens under millwards coaching.
Millward is a very in your face kind of guy, and to the players who he coaches, it seems to bring the best out of them, he tries to play rugby how it should be played, I hope he can get our guys playing a brand of rugby that is good to watch. At the moment that is our major downfall, scoring points. We are defending quite well really, but the fact that we spill to much ball means we have to do probly 25% more defending every game than we have to, we just seem to run out if steam.
So if we cut out the silly errors, and we learn under Millward how to play better attacking rugby without forcing stupid passes all the time, we will keep the ball, score more points, and as a result have to do less defending.

Going forward we dont play with a deep attacking line, we dont use dummy runners, and we never have a second phase of attack, all these should be basic things to a team like Wigan who over the last 20 years have playes some of the best rugby Ive ever seen.
This is as result is making our halves look alot worse than they are, half backs need runners, they need people running onto the ball, at the moment they run around looking for people who are just not there, rather than blame the coaching or whatever is responsible for our whole attack being void of ideas.

I'm hoping that Millward can get the best our of Moran and Orr, because they are both players who are capable of so much more than what they are producing at the moment, Millwars infectious personality and enthusiasm should get alot of our players playing better and give them more confidence.

Also, Millward seems to be able to attact the bigger overseas players, hes very pro-active, he likes to make the first move whatever he is doing, and it looks like the overseas players want to come and play for him aswel.

Also on a sidenote, Jamie Peacock is out of contract at the end of the season and is stalling on agreeing a new deal with the Bulls on the hope an Aussie club comes in for him, maybe Millward should work his charm and mither Lindsay into getting an offer in as soon the the deadline passes.

[Doveoverdave]

Chrisa posted:
That he is to young at the moment and is not ready for the Wigan job. I think Lindsay knows he does have potential, but not the knowledge and experience yet

If this is the case why has it taken best part of a year and a half to come to this conclusion. Why has Mo, as good as, offered DB a job for life, "DB will always be at this club" or words to this effect.

[mrs_carney]

Also on a sidenote, Jamie Peacock is out of contract at the end of the season and is stalling on agreeing a new deal with the Bulls on the hope an Aussie club comes in for him, maybe Millward should work his charm and mither Lindsay into getting an offer in as soon the the deadline passes.

So instead of an old aussie we should go for an ageing brit? Second row is absolutely overflowing with people wanting the spot.

Why do we need a loose forward? O'loughlin will be back next season and i have total faith in him. Tomkins is also a loose forward should o'loughlin have a few games off. I thought we should have signed shaun timmins he seems like a good utility player who can play centre, stand off and go in the pack if need be but i guess now we have fletcher, unless timmins grandma used to live in scotland for a brief period we wont get him.

A plus about millward, he knows how to use substitutes wisely, something we havent been seeing recently!

[Doveoverdave]

mrs carney posted

So instead of an old aussie we should go for an ageing brit? Second row is absolutely overflowing with people wanting the spot.

The people wanting this spot are not good players. At least some speccies want to sign the best that the UK has to offer. Instead of trying to make out that Tickle is some kind of world beater.

[mrs_carney]

Yes because tickle has been absolutely appalling for us this season, missed one game, played 80minutes a week, broke through defense and ran his blood to water and still is only 21/22, i can see why you think he isnt a world beater!
So tickle, hock, allen, hansen, guisset, wild, o'loughlin, fletcher, tomkins none of them are good players?

[portite]

Maybe not good players or ready for SL yet, but they will be, We need local talent in our team. Tickle may not be a world beater, but I think he has been our best player this season and his goal kicking has drastically improved.

[Doveoverdave]

mrs_carney posted:
Yes because tickle has been absolutely appalling for us this season, missed one game, played 80minutes a week, broke through defense and ran his blood to water and still is only 21/22, i can see why you think he isnt a world beater!
So tickle, hock, allen, hansen, guisset, wild, o'loughlin, fletcher, tomkins none of them are good players?

Here we go again!

Tickle is a good pro - not GB material - not a world beater just a good pro.

The worse the team plays the more he stands out because he is a better player than most of the Wigan outfit - but that isn't saying much at the moment.

[GeoffN]

Schalk Brits... posted:
Millward also knows he needs a top class experienced loose fwd.Joel is a good kid but he will probably cut his teeth in the 2nd row ( he played 2nd row for lancs u18 yesterday ),a 16 year old called Clough from St Helens played loose

We aren't going to get a top class loose forward for the rest of this season, and, as MrsCarney says, we've got O'Loughlin back next season, and he's the future GB 13, barring injury.
Prop should be priority, letting Guisset move back to 2nd row.

[robjoenz]

I have mixed feelings on the appointment of Millward. His CV says he's the best coach SL has seen, I'm not sure what he can do this season though before we have chance to rebuild a bit. I wonder what we would have done if Saints hadn't have sacked him?! Would we have done anything then?!

You're right ChrisA that he had Saints playing a very in-your-face game but how often have we seen them frantically spreading the ball to only to make a daft mistakes like throw it out of play or do what Moran did last week. Betts said last week that he told the team to perservere and you'll eventually make the break you need. If we play the Millward way with our current form our handling errors will double.

Someone else also mentioned that he didn't have such a good record against us in recent times, with the exception of the CC Final last year. Not sure how he couldn't get his players to play well on these occassions. Will he be able to help us raise our game?! Another thing he said last week that he likes Saints and wishes them well in the future, a conflict of interests as Wigan coach I'd have thought, although he might want to prove a point to the board who sacked him, get his own back so to speak.

One thing I will look forward to though is some more inventive play, e.g. the way he got Saints having two dummy halves. I'll look forward to that influence, should also help with runners for Orr and Moran.

Not so sure Millward using his influence to sign players, I don't know how much Lindsay will like that. Could be a few rifts between the coach and the board coming up?!

Finally though, I'd like to wish Millward good luck, because after all if he doesn't do well neither do Wigan Warriors RLFC and I am a fan of Wigan RLFC not a Millward hater!

[DaveO]

robjoenz posted:
I have mixed feelings on the appointment of Millward. His CV says he's the best coach SL has seen, I'm not sure what he can do this season though before we have chance to rebuild a bit. I wonder what we would have done if Saints hadn't have sacked him?! Would we have done anything then?!

You can't sign what is not available. We know that is true with players and it is the same with coaches. I don't think the question you ask is realistic because it requires hindsight you aren't going to get! We did sign him and who knows if we would have gone for anyone else had Millward turned us down.

I have mixed feelings to but only becuas eof the way he was sacked at Saints. Stil a bit of a cloud hanging oover him there I feel. I have never been that bothered about his outbursts and so on when a Saints coach because he was just that, Saints coach and so why did I care? Should he bring us into the limelight for the wrong reasons I might be more interested!

I was much more bothered about his deliberate weak selections and I seriously hope he never tries that on here as that is much worse than his periodic outbursts IMO.

Someone else also mentioned that he didn't have such a good record against us in recent times, with the exception of the CC Final last year. Not sure how he couldn't get his players to play well on these occassions. Will he be able to help us raise our game?!

That could justbe down to the fact our players are simply up for it more than that lot at Saints.

Another thing he said last week that he likes Saints and wishes them well in the future, a conflict of interests as Wigan coach I'd have thought, although he might want to prove a point to the board who sacked him, get his own back so to speak.

He isn't going to say "I hate Saints". Saying there is a confict of interest is like saying Luke Robinson is deliberately going to drop the ball next week because he said he enjoyed his time here and wishes us well when he left.

Finally though, I'd like to wish Millward good luck, because after all if he doesn't do well neither do Wigan Warriors RLFC and I am a fan of Wigan RLFC not a Millward hater!

Same here. Can't beleive what I am hearing ahout people getting rid of season tickets.

Dave