Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 1:35 pm  

FearTheVee wrote:

Those forum minutes are embarrassing, no wonder they didn’t want anyone there.

I’d be very worried if I were a Wigan fan, seems a very amateurish setup indeed with people well out of their depth.

Awe bless!

Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 3:44 pm  

Personally i wouldn't be bothered if we told latics to stick their ground and took us to the Sports village.

I would love a packed stadium every week with a bit of atmosphere.

A half empty Dw isnt great anyway.

What do people think and if we cant build our own and end up away from the DW ( Theoretical scenario) where would you prefer, Leigh ( still in Wigan Borough) or Bolton?

Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 3:48 pm  

Tricky Dicky wrote:

Personally i wouldn't be bothered if we told latics to stick their ground and took us to the Sports village.

I would love a packed stadium every week with a bit of atmosphere.

A half empty Dw isnt great anyway.

What do people think and if we cant build our own and end up away from the DW ( Theoretical scenario) where would you prefer, Leigh ( still in Wigan Borough) or Bolton?

either, both better than the DW

Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 3:51 pm  

I'd be bothered can't walk to the ground then via my local pubs

Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 4:37 pm  

Tricky Dicky wrote:

Personally i wouldn't be bothered if we told latics to stick their ground and took us to the Sports village.

I would love a packed stadium every week with a bit of atmosphere.

A half empty Dw isnt great anyway.

What do people think and if we cant build our own and end up away from the DW ( Theoretical scenario) where would you prefer, Leigh ( still in Wigan Borough) or Bolton?

I would be very bothered. Leigh isn’t our town. Wigan is. Moving in with Leigh would be the height of embarrassment IMO and would do nothing to help crowds, in fact I think it would harm them. For the same (and more) reasons Bolton is an absolute no.

Let’s face facts here; our rent is going up, like it or lump it (it makes no odds to me). That’s still cheaper than building and funding our own ground. If IFL would have bought the DW and the worst happens and Latics got liquidated we’d be lumbered with the DW and inevitably we’d have headed down the path to liquidation too.

There is issues with the DW but the positives outweigh the negatives and in my book both us and Latics being there has mutual benefits for both, benefits neither club could live without IMO.

When IFL retires and say Danson took over, a new stadium might be on the cards. But ultimately that depends on the economic climate, the financial strength of the club and the financial strength of the sport. If one of those 3 aren’t good, we aren’t doing it and at the moment none of them are good. It’s a long road back to being good.

I love a packed stadium as much as you Tricky, I doubt you’d find anyone to disagree there but I’d take financial security at the DW over a packed stadium any day. Do I want us to have our own ground? Absolutely. Is it the be all and end all? Absolutely not.

Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 4:59 pm  

100% Warrior wrote:

I would be very bothered. Leigh isn’t our town. Wigan is. Moving in with Leigh would be the height of embarrassment IMO and would do nothing to help crowds, in fact I think it would harm them. For the same (and more) reasons Bolton is an absolute no.

Let’s face facts here; our rent is going up, like it or lump it (it makes no odds to me). That’s still cheaper than building and funding our own ground. If IFL would have bought the DW and the worst happens and Latics got liquidated we’d be lumbered with the DW and inevitably we’d have headed down the path to liquidation too.

There is issues with the DW but the positives outweigh the negatives and in my book both us and Latics being there has mutual benefits for both, benefits neither club could live without IMO.

When IFL retires and say Danson took over, a new stadium might be on the cards. But ultimately that depends on the economic climate, the financial strength of the club and the financial strength of the sport. If one of those 3 aren’t good, we aren’t doing it and at the moment none of them are good. It’s a long road back to being good.

I love a packed stadium as much as you Tricky, I doubt you’d find anyone to disagree there but I’d take financial security at the DW over a packed stadium any day. Do I want us to have our own ground? Absolutely. Is it the be all and end all? Absolutely not.

Spot on

[DaveO]

Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 5:16 pm  

Jukesays wrote:

Come on Dave

First it was bad when people thought it was IL/KR only signed the players so lets have a go at them
Now because they say there are others in the process its they're deflecting blame so we'll have a go at them.

I'm sure IL would love to go and sign lattrell Mitchell, we haven't got the money and he wouldn't come etc etc

I've said it before, I will blame IL/KR for asking Lam to be there for 1 Yr, then subsequently extending it when the Edwards fiasco hit.
I do blame IL/KR for announcing Edwards without having his name on a contract and all details agreed, especially when they get stick normally for dotting i's and crossing t's and not announcing stuff earlier on most other things.

But the current trend of blaming rhem for everything is poor form.

We have failed do get the best out of virtually every player and every junior over the last 3 years with a lot actually regressing.
I blame Lam for that, but I blame IL/Rads for appointing/sticking with him too long.

We cant change the owners as easy, we need a strong coach and coaching set up that will oversee thigs and get us back on track (Look at the transformation at Saints since Holbrook came in, even with same owners that were getting flak for the previous 6/7 years whilst Wigan were doing so well).

The added complications of covid/less income/other rfl&sl issues make it a poor time to be struggling, but the overwhelming thingbi took away from the evening was that a lot of people are working very hard to get us through it and come out the other end "Relatively" unscathed and in a better position than most.

Despite all the issues stemming from the pandemic we learned the club still spends to the cap limit so how come when we do that we have ended up with such an unbalanced squad? Who is responsible for this?

Having read the minutes of the forum and in particular the bit about contracts for young players I am now convinced they have got it wrong as far as squad management goes. According to what Radlinski said they face a choice about paying the market rate for the young players when contracts come up for renewal or letting them go. He then said they have chosen to pay the market rate for players who they expect to mature in three or four years time. He also said he expected KPP's manager to come asking for a three or four times pay increase. (How stupid a thing to say is that? He's just invited him to do just that). We have several young players who the club decided to keep and pay the market rate of which I'd say Harvard and possibly Smithies are worth the punt. When KPP is up for renewal him as well but Byrne and Partington aren't worth paying the market rate for the next three or four years hoping they will be top players IMO. We need better, more experienced players than them now. We'd have been better off letting them go and spending the money an experienced front row player.

The forum minutes tell us next year having recruited a half back we will be paying up to the cap limit (or within spitting distance of it) yet look at the squad we will end up with for £2.1m. We will have ONE specialist centre and that will be Thornley for goodness sake. Looking at the squad we will end up with and the wage bill we will have the club is paying too much money to several players. We will have numerous back rowers who all won't be able to get a game. Why is ISA's deal being renewed? He's hardly played in the pack all season because we have had no centres half the time so if he gets another deal which back row forward are we paying to sit out the game if he's back in the pack?

I think the root cause of the unbalanced squad we end up with is the policy of paying the "market rate" for too many young players. A couple of years ago Rads made no secret of the fact he liked the way Leeds did things who have a clear pay structure and salary bands. If I was a betting man I'd say he's implemented this slavishly so when we give four a five young players a contract as he described, they all jump to a particular wage. I obviously can't prove this but it's a plausible explanation looking at the fact the club is spending £2.1m and then looking at the squad and scratching your head as to where has the money gone. So now I have the context of those questions Rads put back to the audience about retaining young players, if I had been there I would have answered, yes you have got it wrong.

Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 5:59 pm  

DaveO wrote:

Despite all the issues stemming from the pandemic we learned the club still spends to the cap limit so how come when we do that we have ended up with such an unbalanced squad? Who is responsible for this?

Having read the minutes of the forum and in particular the bit about contracts for young players I am now convinced they have got it wrong as far as squad management goes. According to what Radlinski said they face a choice about paying the market rate for the young players when contracts come up for renewal or letting them go. He then said they have chosen to pay the market rate for players who they expect to mature in three or four years time. He also said he expected KPP's manager to come asking for a three or four times pay increase. (How stupid a thing to say is that? He's just invited him to do just that). We have several young players who the club decided to keep and pay the market rate of which I'd say Harvard and possibly Smithies are worth the punt. When KPP is up for renewal him as well but Byrne and Partington aren't worth paying the market rate for the next three or four years hoping they will be top players IMO. We need better, more experienced players than them now. We'd have been better off letting them go and spending the money an experienced front row player.

The forum minutes tell us next year having recruited a half back we will be paying up to the cap limit (or within spitting distance of it) yet look at the squad we will end up with for £2.1m. We will have ONE specialist centre and that will be Thornley for goodness sake. Looking at the squad we will end up with and the wage bill we will have the club is paying too much money to several players. We will have numerous back rowers who all won't be able to get a game. Why is ISA's deal being renewed? He's hardly played in the pack all season because we have had no centres half the time so if he gets another deal which back row forward are we paying to sit out the game if he's back in the pack?

I think the root cause of the unbalanced squad we end up with is the policy of paying the "market rate" for too many young players. A couple of years ago Rads made no secret of the fact he liked the way Leeds did things who have a clear pay structure and salary bands. If I was a betting man I'd say he's implemented this slavishly so when we give four a five young players a contract as he described, they all jump to a particular wage. I obviously can't prove this but it's a plausible explanation looking at the fact the club is spending £2.1m and then looking at the squad and scratching your head as to where has the money gone. So now I have the context of those questions Rads put back to the audience about retaining young players, if I had been there I would have answered, yes you have got it wrong.

Disagree. We've literally had a case study of both approaches. 00s we took your approach of sacrificing youth for big signings and won one challenge cup. 10s we took the current approach of sacrificing big signings for youth and won four Grand Finals and two challenge cups. There have been a few recent signings who haven't worked out but the overall philosophy is spot on IMO.

Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 6:55 pm  

The balance needs to be better in fairness to both sides of any argument. You can’t leave yourself in a position of starting a Derby game with just Liam Farrell in your pack over the age of 22. Yes we had a couple of players absent but we shouldn’t be that short of experience. The prime example is Willie Isa playing most of the season at centre. That has been an issue of our own doing and in fairness to Rads/Lenagan they have owned up to mistakes but now the next step has to be fixing that. A policy of producing our own players is brilliant, it’s worked and we’ve been successful but that was when striking the right balance and we’ve got that all wrong these last few seasons. That’s why I look at our squad for next season and still think ideally we get the halfback mentioned, we keep Hankinson as a squad player and ideally we get another experienced prop in. If you can get that prop with 70k I’m not sure.

Re: Fans forum - Tuesday 31 August : Sat Sep 04, 2021 7:11 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

The balance needs to be better in fairness to both sides of any argument. You can’t leave yourself in a position of starting a Derby game with just Liam Farrell in your pack over the age of 22. Yes we had a couple of players absent but we shouldn’t be that short of experience. The prime example is Willie Isa playing most of the season at centre. That has been an issue of our own doing and in fairness to Rads/Lenagan they have owned up to mistakes but now the next step has to be fixing that. A policy of producing our own players is brilliant, it’s worked and we’ve been successful but that was when striking the right balance and we’ve got that all wrong these last few seasons. That’s why I look at our squad for next season and still think ideally we get the halfback mentioned, we keep Hankinson as a squad player and ideally we get another experienced prop in. If you can get that prop with 70k I’m not sure.

I'd have thought you could get another prop in for that amount- just perhaps not an experienced one. It'd be great if we could find a big unit in the NSW/Queensland Cup with a point to prove.

I think one of the other big issues is the quality of the 3/4 line - I think its well short of what you would want in a title challenging team, even if the quality of the league is poor. I don't understand the Thornley signing at all.