No he said there's a difference between saying 'we played terrible' and 'we are terrible'.

Ahhhh... with you. Didn't pick up on that.

Good summary.



A number of new staff brought in, mainly women. We now have a new head of marketing 'Michelle' (was actually at the back of the room helping serve the brews tonight).



More events planned at Robin Park during the season, especially outside on the running track and pitch area.



Tributes to Inga and David Stephenson, stated there will be recognition of both on the walls of the arena in the coming weeks.



Mary Sharkey to retire after 30+ years at the club, will be honoured at tomorrow's game.



Progression of apprenticeships going forward, rugby and non rugby related. Going very well and the club currently have a couple of hundred signed up, club hopes for this to increase to 400-500 in a couple of years, this brings in significant revenue as well as promotes the club within the community.

Sounds like a positive night all around, look forward to watching it for myself on wigan tv at the weekend.



Must be said, what a breath of fresh air it has been having the club be so much more open and engaging with the fanbase this season! Much improved by the club on this front and long may it continue.

Whilst it looks like the club is moving in the right direction & there is a lot more positivity around the club, why did it take Matty Peet becoming head coach and potentially Shaun Wane to be back in the fold?



Are IL and KR deluded? Do they not know what's going on? Are they focused elsewhere?



This isn't an IL/KR bashing, I just don't understand why things have only just come to light and we are making progress?

I posted something similar in another thread. It's like, oops we've messed up and now it's going to take another 3 years to fix it.



I'd have loved to know more about what they've really learned from the last 3 years. The obvious one is, a bad coach can do a hell of a lot of damage. The one I'm not sure that's fully sunk in is - we need a variety of players and not workhorse 5ft 11 guys. Will they do what needs to be done when Singleton, Partington, Isa & others are OOC?

Go and ask the question next time - there's another one in 8 weeks.



I don't think they believe that they've messed up and I wouldn't say that myself either. They've made some good decisions (KPP, Hastings, Bibby, French, Field) and couldn't have forseen the issues the latter two have had personally and with injury. Cust, Ellis and Mago look promising although the jury's still out there. ST sales and attendances are starting to rise slightly after the pandemic which is good news. The retail and merchandise side has been a massive improvement, they look to have secured a good sponsor in Open Exchange and bringing in Mike Danson plus the new deal with stadium helps to secure the club's future. Not all bad.



There's been some poor decisions as well and IL probably phrased it as you would expect ('they don't get everything right'). I think most would agree they appointed the wrong man as head coach in Lam and you could argue that they should have let him go at the end of 2019 as we were performing poorly in spite of the final league position. But they gave him another go with new signings (maybe they had no choice because of the Shaun Edwards situation) and would have looked ridiculous if they'd sacked him at the end of 2020 with a trophy and GF appearance. I think almost everyone on this forum acknowledged that Lam had earned another year on the back of that despite the underlying sense that he may not be the right man.



I agree with you on the players you mention - I think they were all poor decisions. I said that we should have let Isa go before they renewed his deal but not many on here agreed - my rationale was that we have plenty of young backrowers who could do the job he does. Singleton has been a poor signing for me which was perhaps made with more of a focus on the short-term than the long. Partington just isn't big enough and doesn't have a clear position in which he can be effective - I've thought that since he made his debut but we gave him a long-term contract.



The main two priorities for me should be to continue to place a focus on increasing the size, power and explosiveness of our team (compare us to Saints in this area and it sometimes looks like we're running in quicksand) and to assess whether there is anything more we can do to improve the top end quality of our academy players. We haven't had an academy player go on to become a full international since Oliver Gildart. Saints have several who are on that path - combine them with previous academy products turned internationals who have spent their full career at the club and its no surprise that they're out in front at the moment.

Think just coaching wise they may have viewed it as -



2019 - Not ideal but lams first year and lost loads of players from 2018, give him another year and see how it goes



2020 - weird covid year, LLS, 2 mins of a GF win



2021 - wheels came off so they got rid.

I think that more accurately sums it up than "are IL and KR deluded?"



I'll never understand these Wigan fans - especially the ones who "aren't bashing IL and KR" (honest!) - who can never seem to resist having a personal dig at the club's brass.



I mean, seriously. Where else do people think that someone like KR in particular, might be focussed?



AL took the coaching reins in the midst of chaos: the Edwards betrayal followed by COVID. And he still got us to a final. On that basis, how much of an 'obvious mistake' was it to award him an extension?



How much foresight did IL and KR genuinely lack to not anticipate the collapse of AL's team last year? No one else I know saw it coming, either.

I think that is a fair comment but I would have liked to hear how they are going to achieve it and how long they anticipate it will take. We have had the best academy for the last decade so one can only think that we intend to improve our recruitment, off field facilities and backroom staff. However, if we are to succeed then we will need to tie our good young players down on long-term deals (invoking the extra year on KPP's contract will not suffice), we will have to be more ruthless with playing contracts for those approaching their twilight years and we will definitely need to recruit quality overseas players in positions that we are lacking (five of our seven non-federation players have a contract for 2023 with only French and Field off contract - arguably our best players - so there is not a lot of room for improvement there).



Personally, I don't think we are a million miles off reaching the pinnacle in SL. We have the nucleus of a very good team but we need to be ruthless and release players who are not up to standard. There will be some decent SL players coming off contract at the end of this season but we need room on the salary cap to accommodate them.

I actually had a ticket for last night, but circumstances changed and a 6pm start just wasn't doable.



I understand why, but I doubt I'd get a to the point answer anyway. He's not going to say "yeah Partington isn't big enough and Singleton has been a let down". It's more looking for an understanding of why we like certain types (i.e size, or age) than others. Catalan have come from nowhere really and it's all based off seeing good players McMeeken, Tomkins, Maloney Mcilorum & getting them in. We've done that previously under IL with Gleeson, Finch, Carmont, Lima, but have moved away from it?



Undoubtedly they've done some good thing too btw. I'm a big believer in Peet and have been from the beginning. I do however think it's fair to say that they've either messed up, or something's haven't gone right.



It might not have been popular, but I'd have preferred us not to re-sign French when we did. Nothing against the lad & he's a joy to watch but the side needed a prop. Lam aside, our front row is what let us down last year. I remember a Saints fan coming on here about 12 months ago and saying we were a prop short of challenging. We re-signed a FB tho when we had Field and Zak in the squad.

Well during COVID he was doing the job of about 50 people.

can you imagine the melt down had we not taken the option to re-sign our best and most creative player?





do you not remember how dire we were last year without him?



WTF was the Tour de France about on IL's slides?

Most of us did spot the red flags when it came to Lam and very early on too. That's not just me, but others like Jukes who saw the signs from the 1st season. I doubt anyone can label him as being an anti IL or KR guy too.



Go back to the Leigh game, 1st game last season and it was obvious how bad the team was. No shape, no go forward and no hope. Go forward to the Hull CC game, same issues and this time no game plan. Watch the team fold at Catalan and see the frustration in the players and see the stupid pens they gave away. It only got worse too and holding onto him has only made Peet's job a hell of a lot harder imo. Maybe Peet wasn't the right guy to take over mid season, but I'm sure there were options to remove Lam and bring in someone who didn't have Lam's approach to discipline or Culture.



Also where's the line drawn between "not bashing KR" and letting things slip/speaking out about things that have a detrimental impact on the club? KR spoke after the 2014 WCC about needing size and we've only got that in 22. We've all rolled our eyes the new deal Clubb got and yet, have the same mistakes been made with Isa? KR at the last forum Rads said something like "Singleton is a Wigan type of player and one we've wanted for a while". Is that not worrying?

We did sign re-sign our best and most creative player. We bagged Hastings.



You also can't use hindsight to say how much we missed him. No one knew Field was going to get injured like he did. In a salary capped world, you can't have that luxury.



I'll call it right now for this season btw - I'd prefer another prop or 2nd row to be here than French.

I am not only referring to the actual performances under Lam.



The club have started making changes off the field such as the fans forum, community engagement, bringing in Wane so that Radlinski can focus on the business side.



My post is more aimed at why the above has only just started?

We do have the benefit of Field showing what he can do now though - which can make both French & Field look a little bit of a luxury - but at the time, not resigning French would have been madness as he was our only bright spark in a otherwise lacklustre team.



These two are the players who get fans on their feet and excited about coming to a game - I don't see them as being exclusive and they can play together in the same team - I think we could have got another prop without sacrificing one of them. I do think French at FB, Field in the halves, Cust at 9 is by far our best combination - fits in players who are a threat in their more natural positions without sticking French/Field to the wing where neither are suited.



Where we have got our recruitment and strategy wrong is too many of the same type of players - as others have said.



Difficult decisions but these were the type of decision we got right in the 80's - letting nice people go who were not quite good enough or had been here too long. One or two of our young props need to be let go, Isa shouldn't have been resigned, Zak on the wing is looking like an expensive waste of talent - not his best position and probably paying him too much to be a bit part player.



This could have funded another prop and we have a far stronger balanced squad whilst keeping both Field and french.

Couldn't disagree more. French and Field in the same side is exactly the type of team we should be aiming to have at Wigan. Facilitate it by all means by surrounding them with the right players but it shouldn't be an either/or. Not resigning French when there are any amount of players we could reasonably lose before him would be criminal.

We resigned Hastings?



Wasn’t he on a two year deal and that’s what he stayed for?



It’s only after seeing Fields performances that people are mentioning not re signing French. Everyone at the time wanted it to happen.

I agree that there's others I'd move on before French, but you can only look at who's ooc.



As with most things - look at Saints. They decided not to get into a bidding war for Coote as they already had a very good #1. That's allowed them to strengthen other areas and, as a whole, they are stronger. Coote might have been the better FB, but the players they've been able to bring in massively outweighs that.



We don't need two quality FB's in the side.

You're right, we don't need 2 quality fullbacks in the side in principle but it's good to have 2 who can play to such a high standard in such a pivotal position to cover injury, loss of form and, in the present climate, suspensions.



We do, however, need 2 quality players in the side (well, more than 2 obviously, but you get the point I'm making). The question is not should we have one or the other but where do we fit both in the side. Both players can play multiple positions. Field 1 and 6 (and possibly wing) and French fullback and wing without question. I would argue that neither half nor wing are settled in our team so there is more than enough scope to fit them both in.



Tommy/Field halves with Cust at 9 or Cust/Field halves with Tommy spelling hooker both look potentially better than we currently have. We already know that French has the ability to be among the best in the league from fullback.



If you don't want to move Field then French and Marshall on the wings gives us pace to burn. There is no substitute for pace as we've seen from Field already this year.



In both instances we have a top quality 1 to cover injuries etc. I'm not sure what the downside is to be honest.

I think the only downside is what their salary does to the cap and what that means for other positions.



If we spend £300k (both marquee) on Field and French then can we manage to fit quality players into the side in the other key positions like 6,7,8,9,10 etc and still manage to get a strong squad or do we end up like Warrington who have a good 1-17 on paper but crumble after that?



One thing I will say about our recruitment/squad is that when we have been missing 7 and 8 players at a time we are still able to put out a team that in most cases is able to compete and has even won a run of games. Not every club can do that and TBH I don't actually think any can and I include Saints in that as shown pretty much every time they play a weak team. How many sides were unable to field a team last year and forfeited? We played three games missing 11 players and won 2 of them.



We aren't going to have a squad of world beaters, nobody is in a salary capped sport, so you have to balance the money as best you can and throwing massive money at two players that both play the same position doesn't seem the right way to do it. If we lose one of French/Field and bring in a big forward to replace them then that is better than having both of them playing behind a crap pack.



Of course, if we manage to keep both of them and spend marquee money elsewhere then it's a piece of absolute brilliance.

I don't know the finances or what those 2 players are on so I can't really comment other than to say neither are marquee at the moment (?) and couldn't be next year either as Bateman has a marquee contract. If we can't afford both then that's another matter, of course but, as a principal, we should be looking to get as many top players in as possible and both certainly fall into that category.

Agree, but you would think if the NRL are sniffing around them that we would need to pay big bucks to keep them because they currently hold the advantage when it comes to wages. If the marquee spots are gone then we need to count their full salaries on the cap which creates another problem.



It isn't as simple as keeping a player because he's quality otherwise we'd be signing world class players like it's 1992.

Of course I understand we work to a salary cap but then so does everyone else and they seem to be able to do it. Catalans, Saints and Warrington all have plenty players who will be on big money. How much do you reckon it took to keep Walmsley, Lomax, Roby, Coote etc at the club last year? And don't even get me started on Warrington!