You need to get rid of luaki he's a liabilty

You have him we will have Wood off you. I will throw in a bag of Skittles and an pie.

The amount of top quality talent we have lost since 2010 and are continuing to lose is a massive concern here. Our production of young talent is top class but the kids need time and losing top quality players( 3 or 4 every season for the last 2-3 years) is taking its toll... especially since our entire attacking structure is built around a freak talent and when he doesn't play it becomes massively predictable for the top sides to stop.

Hudds were worthy winners tonight and didn't even play well .


All that being said... we were still without our 1,7,13 and there's still hope but lets face it, at the start of the season with all the players we lost, none of us expected to be top or even be in with a shout towards the end and we have a huge chance of lifting silverware in 2 weeks time.

No need for Wigan fans to over react IMO.
Only 2 trophies worth winning and you have a good chance of both. It's about getting your best team fit and on the field for the play offs that matters. Tonights result means little in the grand scheme of things.

You're right. The problem is our record against the top 4 this season is played 6 won 1. That's the biggest worry going into the playoffs. We're flat track bullies, that doesn't win Grand Finals.

So there's only 2 games worth turning up for us speccies ?

The Grand Finat at OT and Wembley ?

I wish someone had told me that years ago.

Don't take this the wrong way but Tony Smith wouldn't touch Luaki with a barge pole. If he displayed as much aggression with ball in hand as he does getting involved in face to face or kicking stamping once he's lost the ball or just being daft then he would be a player.

Agree with most of the above but MM was the only player with any real fire in his belly as usual. There was nothing from most forwards and I agree that we miss lockers more than Sam. We had no leadership in the middle and it only went wrong once the subs started to come on. 1st 15 we were fine. Taylor went ok, MM was going well, enter subs, all down hill.

We will win at Wembley but I fear for the play offs.

If you watch the game again without the emotion you'll realise most are over-reacting. We weren't that bad.

The difference between the 2 teams tonight was the kicking game. Our kicks found the man, theirs found the floor. Had Sam Powell's penalty found touch i'd wager a very different result. That was the point of the game when Hudds took control. Obviously there was one shocking call which didn't help.

I have a theory on Tomkins. As far as we believe he is off to NZ at the end of the season and we don't have a replacement. This means one of the current squad has to play FB next year. You can put forward a case as to who you prefer, it seems Hampshire is the chosen one. If he is to play as first choice next year he needs game time this year. It wouldn't surprise me if Sam only plays the CC final and any play off games, ie the only ones that really matter to give Hampshire as much game time as possible.

In my honest opinion, if you couple that performance but factor in Tomkins, Smith, O'Loughlin and Flower, also take out the lunacy of Lauaki, we'll be there or there abouts.

Utter bollox.

Look at our record without Sam. Look at it without Lockers.


Lockers is a vastly improved player over the last 2 or 3 seasons there is no doubt.

However, our real problem is our lack of creativity. Our halves are hopeless.

We have rehed moves (which even I can work out now, obviously our opposition has. If I see the mis-out pass to Farrell on the left one more time, my head will be bloody from the facepalms.


Sam is the X factor. He makes our dull, repetitive moves look good.


If Wane want's to go down under next year he has my blessing.

Massively reliant on a once in a decade superstar.

Or you could have worked it out like the rest of us............

We didn't utilise Hampshire enough. The halves didn't create enough space for Hampshire to attack. Thats down to Blake Green, worst performance from him without a doubt, shocking. His passing and decision making was atrocious tonight.
When Sam Powell had the ball i thought we looked a lot more dangerous.
Our defense was awful tonight, ive never seen a Wigan team in the last 3 years miss as many tackles in one game than i did tonight.
We have to pick it up for Wembley, Hull will be really up for it and the way were performing at the moment we wont be bringing that Challenge Cup home.

We simply have to hope that it's a master plan by Wane.

Personally I doubt it.

I hope that somehow Wigan fortuitously turn it around and win the CC and GF, but if they do I am not convinced it will have been on account of Wane.

I had my doubts when he was appointed. I think it was right to give him a year, but 2 years down the line, I am unconvinced.

The moment Sam Powell (pretty sure it was him) failed to find touch with that kick you knew the game was gone - massive mistake which galvanised Huddersfield and we simply could not get in their half after that.

Overreaction of epic proportions. It's commonly accepted that 1, 7, 9 and 13 form the spine (or rudder, if you will) of a team. For us that's Sam, Smith, McIlorum and Lockers. You will notice 3 of those were in the stands. Also, we were playing the top team in the league when we had one eye on the cup, not bad that we were within a score for most of the game and we had a bad day errorswise. As for Sam, he was in the 19 on Wednesday, and I know for a fact his kit was put out on gameday, so whatever it was, he was planned to be playing. What the hell makes the OP think he's just picking and choosing is beyond me. Just sour grapes because he's leaving I suspect. What does he expect, Wane to play him when he's 50/50 just so we stand a better chance of beating Huddersfield, then maybe lose him for Wembley? I'd be the first to call for his head if that happened. Anyone carrying a knock shouldn't be risked in the league fixtures and I'm glad to see they aren't being. We need everyone available with gas in the tank for Wembley and the play offs.

This is the "glass half full" view of the world.



Personally I hope you are right and it's a master plan by Wane.

Irrespective of this we massively rely on Sam. Look at the stats.

Absolutely bang on.


Great to see someone talking sense. Why people ignore our win and loss record with/without Sam is beyond me. I think is possibly because Sam is going at the end of the season and Lockers isn't.

We might win the CC or playoffs with Sam in the team.

But don't people think its a MASSIVE concern how Wane can't get a win without Sam? Should be the main talking point! Especially with Sam on his way if we are to believe he's off to NZ

Watch it again and freeze frame where grix catches the ball. He has one foot on the touch line.

No because we don't know yet who is coming into the side.

i was reliably informed that your Sam was suspended due to imbibing too much of the hard stuff in recent days [last night?.

At the moment we look like a team with no direction, no management, the players look lost under pressure with no plan B, i fear for SW as the big match performances have been short of the mark.

I hope i'm very wrong but Hull are hitting form and we look very weak in defence and attack, if we lose the cup i feel the end for SW no matter what the play off's bring.

Yeah right.

Based on the payers on the field last night:

1) Ball control - awful. the amount of dropped ball especially early in the tackle count was shocking. Put ourselves under huge pressure allowing Hudds great field position and I think they scored most of their tries directly from these mistakes - and the missed touch pen.

2) Defence - we seem to confuse ill disciplined running out of the line with aggressive defence - same story at the Saints game. Too many players flew out of the line trying to put in a big hit, then were stepped and ended up grasping thin air or making a half tackle - we missed so many tackles this way and made it easy for Hudds to break the first tackle.

We need to get back to a good disciplined flat quick defence. We did it early in the season but seem to have forgotten about it now.

It's almost like wane has them so fired up they forget about technique and try and play on adrenaline alone.

3) Attack. Some people are saying our plays are too easy to read - what plays???? We just aren't putting on any plays at the moment. The one time we did - and there were actually two lines of dummy runners, Charnley got some space and scored a great try.

We are simply not putting on the same plays we did early in the season. At the start of the season we had so many dummy runners and options at times I couldn't see who had taken the ball. Now, we are playing a very flat ball to a forward 9 times out of 10 - and dropping it 50% of the time.......

I don't know if this is intentional in order to make our 'usual plays' harder to read, but it makes us easier to defend against - and causes more room for error - and we are making lots of errors. It may be without lockers we just don't have the 2nd/3rd receiver who can actually make these plays work?

4) Forwards - Apart from Taylor there was not a single forward who consistently broke the line. Mossop and Lauaki need to take a good hard look at themselves. Flower and Crosby need to come back asap. We are missing an experienced pack leader - not a hot headed ill disciplined ineffective forward.

Excellent post...