Where did it go wrong?

[Charriots Offiah]

In 2018 we were top dogs, Saints have now taken over our position. On another topic I stated that Rads was being outdone by Rush when it came to recruitment, a comment made in the heat of the moment without proper investigation. I thought it only fair to look and present the facts.

Wigan

2019 - French, Hardaker, Sammut and Bullock.

2020 - Hastings, Bibby, G. Burgess; Clark, Pierce Paul.

2021 - Bateman, Field.

Saints

2019 - Batchelor, Naiqama, Paulo, Coote.

2020 - None.

2021 - Thompson, Paasi, Matautia, Norman.

On reflection, I was too hard on Rads and therefore I apologise. Wigan's recruitment has been every bit as good if not better than Saints.

This still doesn't explain our demise so it is worth looking at the players that have left both clubs over the past three seasons

Wigan

2019 - Bateman, Sutton, S. Tomkins, Woods.

2020 - Sarginson, Davies, Kibula, C. Field, Sammut, Williams

2021 - Escare, J. Burgess, Wells, Rushton, Mullen, Flower, Wilde, Roberts, Barren, Holcroft, O'Loughlin.

Saints

2019 - Wilkin, M. Smith, Barba, Morgan.

2020 - Richardson, Swift.

2021 - Paulo, Peyroux, Ashworth, Hazzard, Sharratt, Graham.

My view is that Wigan have lost more quality and influential players than Saints (and not replaced them) and we are still playing catch up (we need to make sure that we retain our top class young players). Added to this Saints have had a better coach at the helm for the past three seasons.

I believe that time will be the great leveller, our young players will develop both physically and from a rugby perspective. The issue regarding the coach should be resolved in 2022. Rugby success comes in cycles and if the management can integrate some experienced and quality players with our young guns then we will start to collect trophies on a regular basis.

Any further views?

p.s. if the above lists are incorrect please amend.

[widdenoldboy]

Good post, backed by facts.

I'd add that our big signings have ended up as long term injuries, G.Burgess, Field and French plus J.Burgess, Manfredi and Marshall - have other teams had this scale of problem?

[NICKYKISS]

When it comes to departures that really sting, Saints have pretty much only lost Luke Thompson in these last few seasons, whereas we’ve lost Sam Tomkins, Williams, Bateman and to a lesser extent Sarginson and Sutton, with Lockers also retiring. You’ve absolutely nailed it there with the issues we’ve faced. We’ve got Bateman back now but there’s work to do.

It will be interesting to see how Saints now deal with departures they would like to have avoided. I’m sure they’d have loved to keep Coote and Fages and to a lesser extent Naiqama. If they keep striking gold on the recruitment front, than it’s happy days for them. They’ll have Welsby and Dodd taking two really big positions for them next year. The hype aside with Welsby and in Dodds case, it’s not easy to deal with the pressure and expectation. I like Welsby, he’s potentially a very good player but he’s not quite at the level that the Sky lads make out yet and I’m interested to see how he deals with a dip in his career. One will come and fortune won’t keep shining on him, so we’ll see how it goes.

[moto748]

Good post, backed by facts.

Controversial approach!

[pedro]

its simple, we lost our best players, saints didnt, we replaced them with players with ability but people who havent been around the culture built at the club by Wane and Maguire like Sarge, Sam and Bateman...add Micky Mac to that, massive loss and still not replaced him

[Wiganer Ted]

We all felt everything was going right when the Trophy was lifted having won the GF in 2018.
That was Shaun Wane's final match and he delivered the Trophy.
So what happened to get us from that point to now?
Perhaps the start of the decline occurred when we tried to replace Waney?
Edwards backed away from us, as well as Wasps, Wales to take up a job in France. So we were left with Adrian Lam.
From the start of 2019 to now has seen a steady decline. As has been mentioned we have lost real quality players who haven't been replaced by men of similar quality. Then there's been Covid which we've had to deal with but so has every other SL club.
The decline has also been cemented by the poor team selection, inexplicable interchanges and unfathomable tactics. For this Lam has to take responsibility.

It appears to me it went wrong with Lam taking the post of head coach and not being able to produce the form, tactics and winning plays that bring results Wigan expects.

[EagleEyePie]

We've lost a lot of quality and experience that hasn't really been replaced. As much as people like to think we've been on a steady decline since Wane left, last season was hardly a disaster given we finished top of the league and competed well in the Grand Final. There were clearly positives in the team last year but also quite obvious issues.

We were over-reliant on French for creativity, so his loss has significantly blunted our attack, as has the disruption in our halves and the poor form of Leuluai and Powell.

Last season we struggled at first but got wins (similar to this season) but it was the outstanding performances of Havard that carried us down the middle. By the end of the year it was the senior forwards who took over. Singleton (fresh having played little rugby during the year), Bullock (in good form and playing decent minutes), Flower, Clubb and O'Loughlin.

This season there's too much reliance on the younger forwards who make more errors defensively. Bullock has been a bit-part player and given limited minutes. Clark has been hit and miss but still doesn't get picked. Havard isn't as effective in his second full season as it to be expected. Byrne is a bit weak defensively. Clubb has been showing more defensive weakness than he did last year and still plays limited minutes.

I don't think Lam inspires much confidence as a coach based on what we've seen but I also don't think we're in a position to succeed with the squad we have. We were too reliant on French but went into the season seemingly happy with that. We lost lots of experience in the forwards and Lam seemingly didn't rate the experience he had but nothing was done about it. The team is unbalanced.

Perhaps it's unfortunate that when we did have a decent season and got close to Saints we weren't in a financial position to strengthen and close the gap, but I also think last season we were fortunate and papering over cracks that had been present before then, even going back to Wane's time in charge. With the quality allowed to leave we always need to replace it with players at least as good in order to maintain the status quo and we don't seem to have done that.

[DaveO]

In 2018 we were top dogs, Saints have now taken over our position. On another topic I stated that Rads was being outdone by Rush when it came to recruitment, a comment made in the heat of the moment without proper investigation. I thought it only fair to look and present the facts.

Wigan

2019 - French, Hardaker, Sammut and Bullock.

2020 - Hastings, Bibby, G. Burgess; Clark, Pierce Paul.

2021 - Bateman, Field.

Saints

2019 - Batchelor, Naiqama, Paulo, Coote.

2020 - None.

2021 - Thompson, Paasi, Matautia, Norman.

On reflection, I was too hard on Rads and therefore I apologise. Wigan's recruitment has been every bit as good if not better than Saints.

This still doesn't explain our demise so it is worth looking at the players that have left both clubs over the past three seasons

Wigan

2019 - Bateman, Sutton, S. Tomkins, Woods.

2020 - Sarginson, Davies, Kibula, C. Field, Sammut, Williams

2021 - Escare, J. Burgess, Wells, Rushton, Mullen, Flower, Wilde, Roberts, Barren, Holcroft, O'Loughlin.

Saints

2019 - Wilkin, M. Smith, Barba, Morgan.

2020 - Richardson, Swift.

2021 - Paulo, Peyroux, Ashworth, Hazzard, Sharratt, Graham.

My view is that Wigan have lost more quality and influential players than Saints (and not replaced them) and we are still playing catch up (we need to make sure that we retain our top class young players). Added to this Saints have had a better coach at the helm for the past three seasons.

I believe that time will be the great leveller, our young players will develop both physically and from a rugby perspective. The issue regarding the coach should be resolved in 2022. Rugby success comes in cycles and if the management can integrate some experienced and quality players with our young guns then we will start to collect trophies on a regular basis.

Any further views?

p.s. if the above lists are incorrect please amend.

Well I think the obvious thing to point out is what Saints have done or not done on the recruitment/retention front is completely irrelevant.

They didn’t decided to get rid of their best hooker for example. (Micky Mac is absent from your list). Wigan did and whether any other club was daft enough to do the same (which none were as far as I know) does not excuse Wigan doing it.

The fact Wigan failed to plan for Lockers retirement is Wigan’s fault alone.

I also think you are clutching at straws with some of the names mentioned e.g. Summat. He’s mentioned as a recruit and then as a leaver. Given he was rubbish was his recruitment supposed to be an example of a poor recruitment or his exit an example of getting rid of a poor player? There are also some players mentioned who never figured much for Wigan such as Kibula. Again not sure if him being let go is supposed to be good or bad policy but whatever it was, given he played a handful of games I am not sure of the relevance.

In any case the issue is not just who left but who was retained with players like Clubb, TL and even Lockers playing too long. We look to be retaining Powell and not taking the opportunity of his contract ending to improve at no 9.

The point is it’s not a simple numbers game where because Wigan lost or recruited X number of players and this is comparable in numbers to some other team then the situations are comparable. They clearly aren’t because it’s obvious our squad has issues such as to many young forwards, too many past it players etc ,that are discussed nearly every day on here.

[DaveO]

We all felt everything was going right when the Trophy was lifted having won the GF in 2018.
That was Shaun Wane's final match and he delivered the Trophy.
So what happened to get us from that point to now?
Perhaps the start of the decline occurred when we tried to replace Waney?
Edwards backed away from us, as well as Wasps, Wales to take up a job in France. So we were left with Adrian Lam.
From the start of 2019 to now has seen a steady decline. As has been mentioned we have lost real quality players who haven't been replaced by men of similar quality. Then there's been Covid which we've had to deal with but so has every other SL club.
The decline has also been cemented by the poor team selection, inexplicable interchanges and unfathomable tactics. For this Lam has to take responsibility.

It appears to me it went wrong with Lam taking the post of head coach and not being able to produce the form, tactics and winning plays that bring results Wigan expects.

We weren’t “left” with Lam. He was due to be here for one season. The reason we have ended up with him for two more seasons beyond that is because IL chose to employ him and not seek a replacement from the season Edwards was due to take over.

In my opinion Wane saw the writing on the wall and left before the decline in the squad became even worse, with his reputation in tact. Got him a job with Scotland RU and then the England job.

That said I think nearly any other coach currently in SL would do a better job than Lam despite the issues with the squad.

[Charriots Offiah]

In 2018 we were top dogs, Saints have now taken over our position. On another topic I stated that Rads was being outdone by Rush when it came to recruitment, a comment made in the heat of the moment without proper investigation. I thought it only fair to look and present the facts.

Wigan

2019 - French, Hardaker, Sammut and Bullock.

2020 - Hastings, Bibby, G. Burgess; Clark, Pierce Paul.

2021 - Bateman, Field.

Saints

2019 - Batchelor, Naiqama, Paulo, Coote.

2020 - None.

2021 - Thompson, Paasi, Matautia, Norman.

On reflection, I was too hard on Rads and therefore I apologise. Wigan's recruitment has been every bit as good if not better than Saints.

This still doesn't explain our demise so it is worth looking at the players that have left both clubs over the past three seasons

Wigan

2019 - Bateman, Sutton, S. Tomkins, Woods.

2020 - Sarginson, Davies, Kibula, C. Field, Sammut, Williams

2021 - Escare, J. Burgess, Wells, Rushton, Mullen, Flower, Wilde, Roberts, Barren, Holcroft, O'Loughlin.

Saints

2019 - Wilkin, M. Smith, Barba, Morgan.

2020 - Richardson, Swift.

2021 - Paulo, Peyroux, Ashworth, Hazzard, Sharratt, Graham.

My view is that Wigan have lost more quality and influential players than Saints (and not replaced them) and we are still playing catch up (we need to make sure that we retain our top class young players). Added to this Saints have had a better coach at the helm for the past three seasons.

I believe that time will be the great leveller, our young players will develop both physically and from a rugby perspective. The issue regarding the coach should be resolved in 2022. Rugby success comes in cycles and if the management can integrate some experienced and quality players with our young guns then we will start to collect trophies on a regular basis.

Any further views?

p.s. if the above lists are incorrect please amend.

Well I think the obvious thing to point out is what Saints have done or not done on the recruitment/retention front is completely irrelevant.

They didn’t decided to get rid of their best hooker for example. (Micky Mac is absent from your list). Wigan did and whether any other club was daft enough to do the same (which none were as far as I know) does not excuse Wigan doing it.

The fact Wigan failed to plan for Lockers retirement is Wigan’s fault alone.

I also think you are clutching at straws with some of the names mentioned e.g. Summat. He’s mentioned as a recruit and then as a leaver. Given he was rubbish was his recruitment supposed to be an example of a poor recruitment or his exit an example of getting rid of a poor player? There are also some players mentioned who never figured much for Wigan such as Kibula. Again not sure if him being let go is supposed to be good or bad policy but whatever it was, given he played a handful of games I am not sure of the relevance.

In any case the issue is not just who left but who was retained with players like Clubb, TL and even Lockers playing too long. We look to be retaining Powell and not taking the opportunity of his contract ending to improve at no 9.

The point is it’s not a simple numbers game where because Wigan lost or recruited X number of players and this is comparable in numbers to some other team then the situations are comparable. They clearly aren’t because it’s obvious our squad has issues such as to many young forwards, too many past it players etc ,that are discussed nearly every day on here.

Mac left before 2019. The list I produced was not mine it was published by the RL, you can pick it apart if you like but a story needs to start somewhere. The point I am making and the point I started with was that I had rubbished Rads recruitment against that of Rush and I was wrong to do so as it was in no way inferior. People will have views as to why it happened and the intention of the post was to draw out opinions.

My view is clear, we have not got the best out of our squad whereas Saints have exceeded expectations.