Management or Mis-Management?

[fmmarron]

Let me start by saying first of all that I am NOT criticising any of our young players. They courage and skill for me is beyond reproach.

However in todays cut and throat super league it is absolute folly to expect 18/20 years olds, no matter how good to face up to the experienced hardened professions that most super league teams now have especially the Bulls Saints and Leeds.

I believe the mis management at the club over the past few years has let down these young players by expecting too much and also let down the fans also. This strategy of all young players will not work. Ok they may get better in fact they probably will but they need a lot more experienced players around them. Hopefully when Farrell Cassidy etc returns this will help but some CLASS needs to be injected into the team immediately.

Hold onto your hats this season we will lose more than we win and will probably fall out of the top six. This is not acceptable for a team like wigan and I blame the management team.

What does everyone else think.

[John M]

Your spot on with every word my friend.However,because we beat Saints the other week a lot of people will flame you for moaning.However what you say is 100% true and Lindsays idea of transition is stupid because according to him we where in a 3 year transition period when he returned yet that 3 years has passed and he now says we are in another transition period.How many transitions does he need at all?
Like you say,i cannot fault any of the young lads,they are all giving 101% effort but they just cannot play the full 80 minutes,they are just not strong enough yet.When we beat Saints we where very lucky in that last 20 minutes and i have no idea how we managed to hold on.On any other day Saints would of snatched the game at the death just like Bradford did last night.

[wolftown warrior]

good points.. we have problems and i guess we will have to wait & see, we are still making to many mistakes & tactically poor alot of times.
what till september & evaluate. i`m sure if we do fall out the top 6 heads will roll!

[chorleywarrior]

I feel exactly the same and agree 100%,for me Lindsay has made a complete mess of things and i can't believe a few weeks ago some people were saying Raper should be sacked!!The guy has done very well imo after what he has had to put up with,like only working with half a team for most of the season!But i could'nt believe it when i heard that before they got Graham over they were looking at players from the NFP!What the hell is going on

[John M]

Exactly CW.What the hell would a young NFP player of done for us only added yet more inexperience? Lindsay needs to open his eyes and realise that with so many young lads in the team we need more tough experienced workmanlike players like Cassidy and Graham.I really do think Graham will turn out to be a really good player but with so many kids in at once and so many injurys we need more like him.One guy cannot cover the whole width of the field making up for any errors the inexperienced guys make.When the likes of Faz,Cassidy and Newton return then things will improve but i still think we need another Graham style player down the right hand side of the field to strengthen our defence and add a bit of steel.Im very worried what will happen now that Craig Smith is injured.I can only think of loaning yet another player to fill in because Sculthorpe and O'Connor cannot do the job of front row on their own.

[chorleywarrior]

A good point that John,it just makes me wonder what exactly is going on at the club,eg-One minute you have Lindsay saying "He wants to see the amount of overseas players reduced even further"And then what happens,Whelan comes on the radio and asks the fans to be patient because he is trying to bring in 2/3 TOP CLASS AUSSIES over for next season?Do either of them have a clue what they are doing?

[DaveO]

chorleywarrior posted:
A good point that John,it just makes me wonder what exactly is going on at the club,eg-One minute you have Lindsay saying "He wants to see the amount of overseas players reduced even further"And then what happens,Whelan comes on the radio and asks the fans to be patient because he is trying to bring in 2/3 TOP CLASS AUSSIES over for next season?Do either of them have a clue what they are doing?

Strange as it may seem I don't think there is any inconsistancy here. Next year the overseas quota will come down by one and the year after by another to 3. Expressing a desire to have a quota at 2 is a long term thing for the good of GB international RL and in the meantime to allow our kids to learn taking advantage of the (reduced) overseas quota is OK. Next year we will have just four overseas players. Bradford will have 7, Hull 9 and Wakefield currently have 10 due to some having EC passports and other being off quota having played here formore than 5 years (that rule has also gone now so any newsigning can never come off quota).

I agree hiwever we should not be in the state we are in and according to Lindsay we should be coming out of a restructuring not just starting one.

That said if the injury situation was different we would probably have beaten the Bulls last night and Cas first game of the season. Things like the O'Neil fall-out don't help either.

At the start of the season I said we were short a second row and big centre. Well we have a new back row forward and if we ever do get back to anything close to a full team we will beat anyone.

I too was extremely angry we find ourselves in this situation but nothing is going to change it and the performance of the team has cheered me up and made me think it won't be that long a transition as I first thought.

This season is being shaped more by injuries than bad management IMO. Sure they got it wrong but the injuries are the main problem we have. We need some luck.

Dave

[magsrads]

I've been thinking about this quite a bit ... we're very quick to call for Mo or Stu's head for all sorts of reasons ... but NO ONE could predict the dire injury situation that we are in resulting with a different 17 turning out for each and every game - which is bound to effect consistency ... and yes I know other teams have their injuries but since the middle of last season ours have seemed to be at biblical plague proprtions ... the coach can only pick from who is fit (or prepared to be pumped up with pain killers)

Since Marty Hulme left we seem to have been in a vicious cycle of injuries which goes on and on ... is it time to ask Nigel Ashley Jones to stand up and be accountable ?

P.S. and Lady Luck renewing her season ticket to the JJB wouldn't go amiss either ... or perhaps just turning up for a few more games ...

[rugbynelly]

i know we have got a lot of young players in the team at the moment, but saying that look at the injury list.
with all these kids having 1st grade experience think of rugby league for the country and the benefits we will get like beating the aussie's.
also look at leeds now they have a perfect blend of youth and experience, which i belive wigan will have in a year or 2.
We dont need top 6 this year just to stay there or there abouts and look in the long term.
neil

[John M]

rugbynelly posted:
We dont need top 6 this year just to stay there or there abouts and look in the long term.
neil

Im not sure i agree there.We have so called got the highest wage bill in SL and you think its ok to finish out of the top 6! With our wages we should be challenging for the SL title and herein lies the problem.Lindsay has handed so many big contracts out to certain players that the rest of the team has had to suffer because we have no room to move under the salary cap and bring in strength in depth.Any club that is up to their limits on the salary cap should be going out to win things not just make up the numbers.
Im as excited as anyone about the young lads and how good some of them may be in the next 2-3 years but to think that finishing outside the top 6 is acceptable for a few years is suicide and just shows up even more the mess that Lindsay has got us into.