Many thanks Davo, you put into words what I wanted to say regarding the battering of each other.

In my own words I worry about the following, if they are going at it hammer and tongs at one another 3/4 days a week it is tantamount to playing at least another full game every week and the knocks and injuries we may pick up.
Also on what may be a more controversial statement are Wigan spending more time on the aggression side of the game in training instead of the skills department.

Mention on the Squad for Sunday thread that Sarge is out and that he had his knee strapped up and was limping.

If so, must be yet another "training injury"……..

There were certainly several of these last season as well. A fine and difficult balance has to be achieved, but if what Josh says is accurate, it is no surprise that injuries in training are picked up from time to time.

Without wanting to be too critical, I hope that handling and passing have been practised a lot and honed this week after the performance by quite a few players in the first 3 games of the season.

Seems like Still in The Past and I were thinking the same - both posted at the same time!

Players have been injured in training as long as i can remember... But hey, lets create another myth...

WP, there was nothing selective about the quotes I picked out (even though it may have seemed that way) I was trying put show the emphasise on aggression (even though the word brutality was used) and the consequences that may happen with regard to fatigue and training ground injuries that may be picked up.

In regard to what you say regarding our success over the last few years, I cannot disagree but at times it has seemed like a war of attrition.

My problem is I belong in the past, brought up on great rugby, admittedly not always successful.

Not sure it is a myth. Pretty certain Micky Mac and Lockers amongst others picked up injuries in training last season. There have indeed been quite a few in the past couple of seasons and I would guess more than at other clubs.
As previously stated, though, there is a fine balance and undoubted pluses of getting the players 'battle hardened". The problem is exacerbated this time with it being Sarge who is almost certainly our best centre at the moment, a position we are not strong in, particularly with Thornley being a long term injury casualty. (I think his latest setback was the result of a training injury too…….!!!)

So are we starting to invent reasons why we didn't win the Grand Final last year?

We all know why that happened. We saw it with our own eyes. And it was nothing whatsoever to do with over-training.

I think our training regime may have quite a bit to do with our large player turnover in recent years.

Being in the army I believe that the lads will thrive of the tough training and although they probably hate it at the time after it's over its more beneficial than an easy session,if players leave wigan for an easier ride than there not the players we want out on the pitch for us.People may call us thugs but I think the lads will run through walls for each other and a team that's not necessarily big or fearsome punches well above its weight.We are just missing that little spark of magic(green,Tomkins)

The brutal training regime was reintroduced by Michael Maguire (I say reintroduced because it was commonplace under the likes of Lowe and Monie). So are we saying that Madge, who guided us to our first silverware in years, is the one at fault here? Or is the brutal regime only wrong when Shaun Wane employs it?

See points 1 and 2.

Wasn't always great either.

And is that a proven fact ... that training is much harder under Wane than it was under Maguire? For one thing Wane reintroduced warm weather training in Florida. Didn't Madge have them up in North Yorkshire, camping in snow?

There seems to be a lot of opinion masquerading as fact here... With all the medical aids at their disposal, i very much doubt that players are leaving all on the training pitch... Whether rugby League is better for the training regimes that ALL clubs will now have, is another topic, and a very interesting one.

Well it comes from a player who has experienced both so I'd believe him over someone speculating on a forum.

But that statement you're treating as evidence is misleading because the OP was apparently selective in the parts of it he presented.

Disregarding whether training was harder under Maguire or Wane, if the quoted piece had also mentioned that Charnley went on to say that he liked the regime as this would help keep Wigan among the best, it would have had a much less negative vibe.

I'm not going to keep going on about this, because it's a pointless argument - but I for one will never be unhappy to hear that Wigan are training very, very hard.

They did. Training ground injuries were pretty regular occurrences last season. There was a debate about it on Mike's board last season and there was a list all taken from official reports off the club web site.

And this week "Dan Sarginson suffered a dead leg during the Captain's Run the day before the game". From the match report on the official site.

Nothing wrong with the physical fitness, IMO, but the mental aspect is sadly below par, both in terms of discipline and on-field decision making.

No arguments there. We are very short of a cool-headed leader on the field. With the exception of Lockers, all our senior men - Tomkins, McIlorum and Farrell - are prone to losing it.

I agree but I think there is a difference between training to be physically fit and knocking seven bells out of each other in full contact training week in and week out during the season. I can recall last season Wane saying he was going to flog the players during training after a bad result.

If all this is true I don't think it is very smart coaching.

No imo. It is frustrating when you hear a player has picked up an injury in training but surely you have to trust our coaches and backroom staff (I believe we spend more on our backroom staff than any other club).

Wane, Deacon, Bitcon, the physios, sports scientists etc will study our training non-stop and in particular the effect it has on game day. Ultimately you've got to trust them, why would they do anything in training which negatively effects the team on game day? I remember last season when we had an injury crisis and Wane said how they'd looked into the training in detail and could see no correlation between training and the injuries the players had picked up.

I keep wondering if we're making the best use out of preseason, and if it needs mixing up a bit. I know Bitcon and his team plan the training meticulously but the team have been over to Florida for the past 3 seasons now and each of those three seasons have started a bit on the sluggish side. The attack seems a lot less "well oiled" than in previous seasons and the players don't appear as fit as in the Maguire days. Like I say, it is well planned and people with a lot more knowledge in sports science are in charge, but I wonder if the 10 days or so over in Florida every season is the best preparation.

was it not Nobby who took them up to Scotland (?) for a bit of shock & awe, that didn't work either. I can only think it's more of a systemic problem than anything geographical. Let's see if things improve tonight, then we can leave worrying about it for another year.

This is the link if anyone is interested www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... ll-8720035

This is the link if anyone is interested www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... ll-8720035

I think we have the sports science on one side and Wane's World on the other. They play full contact training games regularly and I know last season we picked up at least two injuries in these games and it was probably more.

These injuries were a regular occurrence and if its not the full contact training they are doing something else wrong despite all the science.