ARE WE WORRIED

[Wigan Watcher]

After watching the game last night my thoughts were we didnt blow Hull KR away down the middle, I feel snakes would have.
We didnt stick to a game plan, snakes would have.
I felt our organisation was poor and over all that's two poor games for us. We dont seem to be able to hold it together for a full 80 mins, this is a constant problem along with not dominating the middle

Finally without them two we would be an average team around 4th to 6th?

[Charriots Offiah]

After watching the game last night my thoughts were we didnt blow Hull KR away down the middle, I feel snakes would have.
We didnt stick to a game plan, snakes would have.
I felt our organisation was poor and over all that's two poor games for us. We dont seem to be able to hold it together for a full 80 mins, this is a constant problem along with not dominating the middle

Finally without them two we would be an average team around 4th to 6th?

No. We need to be at our best in the semi-final and final and that's weeks away.

[Caboosegg]

Finally without them two we would be an average team around 4th to 6th?

I think this is rubbish and while I don't think we would have seen the same style of tries we have never really struggled for wingers or FB

[nathan_rugby]

Most teams would be a lot lower down without their best two players.

Look how many assists Welsby has this year or Lolohea

[lucky 13]

Looks to me this may be the lull before the storm ending to the season. On a positive we look like we can make several changes and still blow a lot of teams away. With Batty out we don't seem as intense maybe missing him more than we thought. Havard Batty and Singo missing last night Powell off injured would normally see us struggling down the middle. Smithies made massive strides this season his stats are very much the same if not better than Knowles who's the benchmark. I know stats are not everything. Byrne and Havard also look like SL players but with room for improving, Faz and Batty as good as any. That's the foundation of a very good pack
for the next few years. Field Smith Cust again loads of room for improving and found a decent job now.
Area for improving is centre sort that we are there or there about for the next few years.

[Wigan_forever1985]

I would say at the beginning of the season Jai was carrying us - i think the team have got a lot more up to speed and he and French are still stand out but the team in general are i think 2/3rd best in the league.

That said i think that we still have issues and they always come out when pitched against either the best team in Saints or a team who decide to run white hot like Leeds.

The biggest issue we struggle with is momentum and this comes back to dynamism from the ruck. We need a strategy to take Sam Powell out of the ruck when we are up against it and either field/french or cust go in at 9 till we've broken the momentum.

When we get stuck in our 20 and Powell goes in at 9 i can lay money we wont make it to the 30m line. Thats because he's always passing backwards, he's too slow to scoot and obviously forwards cant trust him to play a line ball so we go 5-10m back before we go forward. Saints know this and pin us there constantly the only time they didnt do that to us was when O'neil played in the CC and forwards seemed comfortable taking those flat balls

I know im highlighting 1 thing there but its so important if you're playing a team with quick line speed. It all boils down to Powell being no threat from dummy half so oppo teams can steam up in a line because he isnt going to jink and go.

I think we tidy that 1 area up and we are as good as anyone

Ill agree Powell will help with the defence and things coming the other way and i dont think o'neil offers much different tbh so i think we need to figure a system where in our own half cust goes to 9 or someone who can provide uncertainty

[Charriots Offiah]

Looks to me this may be the lull before the storm ending to the season. On a positive we look like we can make several changes and still blow a lot of teams away. With Batty out we don't seem as intense maybe missing him more than we thought. Havard Batty and Singo missing last night Powell off injured would normally see us struggling down the middle. Smithies made massive strides this season his stats are very much the same if not better than Knowles who's the benchmark. I know stats are not everything. Byrne and Havard also look like SL players but with room for improving, Faz and Batty as good as any. That's the foundation of a very good pack
for the next few years. Field Smith Cust again loads of room for improving and found a decent job now.
Area for improving is centre sort that we are there or there about for the next few years.

Smithies stats are better, on every level, than Knowles apart from the number of penalties given away The lad is going under the radar and deserves heaps of praise.

[josie andrews]

Looks to me this may be the lull before the storm ending to the season. On a positive we look like we can make several changes and still blow a lot of teams away. With Batty out we don't seem as intense maybe missing him more than we thought. Havard Batty and Singo missing last night Powell off injured would normally see us struggling down the middle. Smithies made massive strides this season his stats are very much the same if not better than Knowles who's the benchmark. I know stats are not everything. Byrne and Havard also look like SL players but with room for improving, Faz and Batty as good as any. That's the foundation of a very good pack
for the next few years. Field Smith Cust again loads of room for improving and found a decent job now.
Area for improving is centre sort that we are there or there about for the next few years.

Smithies stats are better, on every level, than Knowles apart from the number of penalties given away The lad is going under the radar and deserves heaps of praise.

Yes he does, him & Liam Byrne have come on in leaps & bounds this season. Young Harry Smith is a completely different to the overplayed & injured player he was last year.
In fact all our young forwards have improved immensely from last season where I felt they too were overplayed when we had more experienced forwards hardly used.

[Wigan_forever1985]

Looks to me this may be the lull before the storm ending to the season. On a positive we look like we can make several changes and still blow a lot of teams away. With Batty out we don't seem as intense maybe missing him more than we thought. Havard Batty and Singo missing last night Powell off injured would normally see us struggling down the middle. Smithies made massive strides this season his stats are very much the same if not better than Knowles who's the benchmark. I know stats are not everything. Byrne and Havard also look like SL players but with room for improving, Faz and Batty as good as any. That's the foundation of a very good pack
for the next few years. Field Smith Cust again loads of room for improving and found a decent job now.
Area for improving is centre sort that we are there or there about for the next few years.

Smithies stats are better, on every level, than Knowles apart from the number of penalties given away The lad is going under the radar and deserves heaps of praise.

Yes he does, him & Liam Byrne have come on in leaps & bounds this season. Young Harry Smith is a completely different to the overplayed & injured player he was last year.
In fact all our young forwards have improved immensely from last season where I felt they too were overplayed when we had more experienced forwards hardly used.

I dont think Sky helped with Smithies as they made a big deal of him being a rough player and it seemed like him and Partington tried to live up to it whereas they both seem to have settled more now and focusing on their games

Byrne i think will be a great Andy Coley style forward in the future

[josie andrews]

Smithies stats are better, on every level, than Knowles apart from the number of penalties given away The lad is going under the radar and deserves heaps of praise.

Yes he does, him & Liam Byrne have come on in leaps & bounds this season. Young Harry Smith is a completely different to the overplayed & injured player he was last year.
In fact all our young forwards have improved immensely from last season where I felt they too were overplayed when we had more experienced forwards hardly used.

I dont think Sky helped with Smithies as they made a big deal of him being a rough player and it seemed like him and Partington tried to live up to it whereas they both seem to have settled more now and focusing on their games

Byrne i think will be a great Andy Coley style forward in the future

They’ve grown up a bit