The sad thing is that what you say is true. We have let attacking coaches go un-replaced and now we just train to defend. All good and well being good in defence but when you can't score you are just sitting ducks, unless the masterplan is to nil the opponent and hope we score 1 or 2 tries.

Last nights attacking performance was woeful and abject

I said last week that if Hull FC scored 16 or 18 points that they'd win
It's a shocking state of affairs that the above score is too much for us now a days

I like Sam Tomkins, but he urgently needs to start delivering the goods and to perform like a marquee signing is expected to perform
He seems a pale shadow of his former self and seems reluctant to take on the defensive line

tomkins looks badly lacking in confidence. He's also lost that blistering pace off the mark which was what gave him the edge and I'm not sure he has the skillset to be a better 6 than williams is looking likely to be. He was certainly the 2nd best fullback on the field last night

We don't have any props/back-rowers breaking tackles and offloading or getting a quick PTB for players like Tomkins to act on. And as pointed out on another thread, no one running off the ball or asking questions so most of the time Williams and Tomkins just run into a dead end. Plus every time we get into the oppositions 20 we are DESPERATE to score from a grubber kick we don't bother trying even a bomb up to one of our wingers (yet another game passed where we didn't kick high to Manfredi) or a switch play or a set move. We are predictable, boring, no second phases, no angled runs on or off the ball, we cannot break from deep to save our lives, we haven't scored from inside our own half for god knows how long and only a couple of players bother to try offloading.

He's also clearly not fit. Looked to me as if he was under instruction to avoid contact as much as possible last night and there's no doubt that the opposition would try to target his dodgy knees. One bad knock and he's out for 12+ months.

Since he came back, he's not taking the line in at all, he's looking for his winger whenever it's a last tackle kick return, he comes into the line attack and the ball is just through the hands. He's either severely lacking confidence or Wane is lacking confidence in Tomkins or his knee.

We don't offload because we have no support game.

Last night - Tautai, Crosby, Sutton and Bateman. All made a number of punishing runs breaking the first tackle and looking round to offload - NO-ONE THERE! They end up panicking and either throw a speculative offload that goes 15 yards backwards or just drop it under the pressure of the tackle.

Williams as well, always runs across the line and cuts into a gap looking to pass inside - again NO-ONE THERE! Our support play (or lack of it) is as big a problem as any element of our garbage attack at the moment. One up rugby is easy to defend against. And is boring as f*** to watch.

Waney talks about "detail", I think this is a "detail" he is continually overlooking

He was doing that before he left.

Cannonball tackles have the potential to wreck players careers
It's a shame that your coach doesn't feel the same way

IMO it would take a serious injury to a superstar like Sam in order for the RFL to make the required changes to this horrible tackling technique and to ban it

So is he going to avoid all contact and collisions now that he has signed his Marquee contract?

I want the Old Sam back,The one player that scared every side to death,The one that ripped defences to bits
We need this Sam back and not the one that is currently imitating him

Not to the degree he is now.

I'm not sure you'll get him back. He seems to have grown old and frail with the long fatigue of a weary life.

I think it is about time Wigan fans faced up to the facts, the days of Sam striding 60/70/80 yards are a thing of the past, this much he said himself in the pre match interview last night. He said that when he first received his injury at NSW he received bad advice, I think myself that the Wigan Club were Conned good and proper when the negotiations between the two clubs took place.
In my opinion all we can expect from the club is Wigan will nurse him as best they can to keep him on the field.

Now to the only creative player at present in the first team squad, George Williams who is tied to a piece of string 20 yards long never to go within 5 yards of the left touch line and within 5 yards of a line drawn down the centre of the field. I feel for George, he is supposed to handle all the creativity in the Wigan team whilst he is tied to work in such a small area.

When did we stop discussing Tomkins and start discussing McGuire?

I'm guessing it's a mixture of all three tbh. Like I said it seems as though he's being instructed to avoid collisions rather than deliberately, but he definitely looks hesitant. We all know he's never been afraid to take on the line in the past so it's very likely the injury is still in the back of his mind.

Banter aside, does anyone seriously believe Wane condones the cannonball tackle? but then again, given that you think it deserves to banned, you're probably confusing it with the 3rd man coming in to wrap up the legs, which is NOT a cannonball

Of course not, it's still only recently that he came back from his knee injury, which he's still clearly not fully recovered from and/or not completely confident to test out. I'm still hopeful we may see the Sam of 2012 again.

Up until the Saints game I thought Sam Tomkins come back had gone extremely well. Yes he's a different type of player to the one who burst on the scene but he was far more effective in other ways. He then gets an injury against Wakey, misses a week and since coming back he doesn't look quite right.

It simply screams to me that he's carrying that injury. His concentration has looked poor as though his mind is elsewhere.

I hope that he has a good pre season and next year we will see a more confident ST.
I'm wth you until his injury this season he absolutely improved us as a team.
Hopefully he just needs time and a bit of tlc.
A top class rugby player who we need in the future to turn things around.

Yes. Badly. I think it's starting to look like a longer-odds bet, though.

Whilst I agree that we lacked any kind of creativity, we were also missing quite a few strike players. The likes of Gelling and Joel can create things out wide, whilst Farrell is an attacking threat also. Throw in Josh and you've got four international strike players that were missing. Of course that doesn't excuse our lack of spark close to the line but in a SC sport must surely be taken into account?

In relation to our attack or lack of I actually don't have a problem with "the move" every team in the world does it more of less with varying degrees of success. On the back of go forward and quick play the balls it does generate all kinds of problems as every runner is an option runner which should cause all kids of doubt in an under pressure defence.

We however do something different which sees "the move" as very easy to counter. We fail to earn the right to put it on. We simply put it on after a couple of basic 1 out drives with no forward momentum. The defences we are putting it against because of our poor build up are nearly always set and organised.

If we had a few more ideas around the ruck, and a few more bodies in motion on the tackles leading up to the set up then it would have far more positive results. Lining it up against an organised set defence who are not on the back foot renders it totally ineffective.

What has happened to the execution of set plays. It was never this bad.

So many bad passes or dropped balls all season.

In order top do what you suggest we are crying out for some creativity/flair at hooker - something we have not had since Riddel left, neither Powell or MM offer that. Someone to get the opposition on the back foot - even Higham offered that with his scoots from dummy half. Now - nothing just a sloppy, slow loopy pass to the next player in the line.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who isn't impressed with our dummy half play. Neither MM or Powell offer quick ball or a running option from the play the ball, easy to read and slows down everything we do after. MM brings aggression, Powell brings effort, work rate and good defence, neither bring any real creativity.