Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:24 pm  

Cruncher wrote:

There isn't a Wigan player on this field at present who shouldn't hang his head. Every individual has turned in a 'personal worst' performance. At least, since this time last year.

I agree to a certain extent however I think Byrne Mago
and Smithies off the bench had a decent dig even if they came up with a few errors.

Unlike the rest of the team they showed effort.

On the other side of the spectrum Hardaker…was he even in the field?

Really does smack of a nice little jolly up in France for the team….again.

Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:27 pm  

jonh wrote:

I agree to a certain extent however I think Byrne Mago
and Smithies off the bench had a decent dig even if they came up with a few errors.

Unlike the rest of the team they showed effort.

On the other side of the spectrum Hardaker…was he even in the field?

Really does smack of a nice little jolly up in France for the team….again.

A bit more effort towards the end as well. But not enough all round.

Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:29 pm  

I think tonight has just shown we are miles off, even if there is an overall improvement on the season. We’ve still got a set of pansies for forwards and the backs don’t have the creativity or consistency in skill level to be anything other than challenging for fourth spot at best. I really don’t want to be seeing Shorrocks as our replacement 9 when we have O’Neill in the squad and the KPP experiment at centre is fine for some weaker teams but not when we play anyone decent. We’ve got to find a way of getting his variety into the back row because Isa/Farrell/Bateman is just too much of the same.

Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:39 pm  

jonh wrote:

I agree to a certain extent however I think Byrne Mago
and Smithies off the bench had a decent dig even if they came up with a few errors.

Unlike the rest of the team they showed effort.

On the other side of the spectrum Hardaker…was he even in the field?

Really does smack of a nice little jolly up in France for the team….again.

Thought this myself we would have been better going for the day. For both matches.

Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:43 pm  

jaws1 wrote:

[/b]
Thought this myself we would have been better going for the day. For both matches.

Have to agree whoever thought it'd be a good idea well needs a talking too

Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:47 pm  

This has been coming from the start of the season - i know we're only 5 games in, but after last week's effort I had a suspicion this was going to happen. We're too sloppy in defence & ship too many points. The Stainers have a PD of 128, ours is 19 & we're 4th as a result.

Let's just hope this is a wake-up for them.

Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:47 pm  

4 king embarrassing.

Nothing else I can say, really.

Just nothing about us in any department.

Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:50 pm  

jaws1 wrote:

[/b]
Thought this myself we would have been better going for the day. For both matches.

Maybe someone at the club didn't want to be the one filling out all the Covid forms to travel for 30-40 people twice in a week.

Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:56 pm  

I don't think there should be an overreaction - we just didn't manage the conditions. We couldnt hold onto the ball, we conceded 3 tries off the back of kicks on the wet ground and we had little energy left to attack.

The two recurring issues that continue to concern are the lack of power in the forward pack and the completely unacceptable dummy spit at the end from Ellis (just like Hardaker last year) which leaves a relatively weak front row even weaker for 8 weeks.

Re: 21 man squad to face Catalans Saturday. : Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:59 pm  

I like to be harsh when we win and to be optimistic when we lose. I feel far more positive tonight than I did after that Catalans defeat last year. It has absolutely confirmed my fears in terms of us having zero chance against Saints or Catalans in poor weather. We just don’t have the size or go forward in the pack to compete.

I’d have been far more concerned tonight had we lost by that score line, playing in dry weather and they just broke our line time and again but realistically we’ve produced a horror show of errors and given them points. Barrie Mac kept saying it was a Wigan 2021 performance, with us looking clueless in attack but I disagree. You can’t look clueless in attack if you can’t even hold the ball and you keep dropping it in your 20 metre zone.

Tonight has to be a game that makes our season rather than breaks it. It needs to be a stark wake up call for Lenagan and Rads that our middle unit still isn’t good enough to win games in these conditions and we need to continue looking at how we can improve that. I didn’t think we could win anything before tonight and I still don’t but we can learn things and we can still have a positive season.