Harlequins RU : Thu Jul 01, 2021 8:35 am  

For those of you that didn't see it, Harlequins RU won the RU grand final on Saturday.

Now I know many of you won't care about that, but the interesting thing is - mid way through their season, they found themselves in a similar situation to us. They had a coach who's style of play didn't suit the club and had lost to Exeter (the team they beat in the final) by 30 points. They were 7th on the ladder, the coach had lost the players and it looked like their season was going down the toilet.

How did they turn it around? They sacked the coach and appointed a guy who's approach to the game fitted in better with the players they had. Funnily enough they had the complete opposite problem to us. Their coach (Gustard) was heavily defence orientated and the Quin's players like to throw the ball around. It just wasn't working.

When you look at the current Wigan side, I'm personally not ready to write it off. I've also always thought that switching a coach mid season is a bad idea, but watching Quins win at the weekend and seeing how bad Lam is - I've come around to the idea.

I said last week that any coach would love to takeover after Lam. There's some really simple tweaks that you can make + if you brought a prop in (anyone at this stage) then you'd see a marked improvement.

I guess the question is - who would you bring in to replace Lam? I'd personally go for someone like Brian McDermott (until the end of the season). I'm not saying he's a long term option, but right now he fits the bill. He's no nonsense, has plenty of experience and I think he'd shore us up a little. I believe from what I read, he had a good working relationship with Singleton at Leeds and If he can get him going again, we'll be in a better position.

Re: Harlequins RU : Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:18 am  

However bad things get, I just don’t see Lenagan changing things until the end of the season. I would’ve made a change 2 years ago, so I clearly would now but I doubt we will. I was prepared to give Lam half of that first season to start seeing a plan of what we were trying to achieve, what the game plan was etc but we still couldn’t tell come the end of 2019. Amazingly we still can’t now and we’re 2 years down the track. I felt watching Hastings messing about at full back last night really sums up Lams time here. He has taken the best player in the league, the best half by a country mile and turned him in to a utility player, who now looks well off his game.

Re: Harlequins RU : Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:29 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

However bad things get, I just don’t see Lenagan changing things until the end of the season. I would’ve made a change 2 years ago, so I clearly would now but I doubt we will. I was prepared to give Lam half of that first season to start seeing a plan of what we were trying to achieve, what the game plan was etc but we still couldn’t tell come the end of 2019. Amazingly we still can’t now and we’re 2 years down the track. I felt watching Hastings messing about at full back last night really sums up Lams time here. He has taken the best player in the league, the best half by a country mile and turned him in to a utility player, who now looks well off his game.

As I said in my OP, I was the same as you. Invariably these mid-season signings don't work out in the long term. You normally get a bump when the new guy comes in and this then leads of calls for them to stay i.e Agar at Leeds or Solskjaer. That however turns into longer term issues.

I've genuinely had enough of Lam however. The example you give is spot on and there's probably 3 or 4 more you can list out too.

If we can bring in a guy for the rest of the season, knowing they'll be moving on after it - I'd be happy with that. Just get something new into the club, shake it up a little.

Really sad that Sheens has gone back to Wests.

Re: Harlequins RU : Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:18 am  

Lam has the safest job in Super League

Re: Harlequins RU : Thu Jul 01, 2021 1:22 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

However bad things get, I just don’t see Lenagan changing things until the end of the season. I would’ve made a change 2 years ago, so I clearly would now but I doubt we will. I was prepared to give Lam half of that first season to start seeing a plan of what we were trying to achieve, what the game plan was etc but we still couldn’t tell come the end of 2019. Amazingly we still can’t now and we’re 2 years down the track. I felt watching Hastings messing about at full back last night really sums up Lams time here. He has taken the best player in the league, the best half by a country mile and turned him in to a utility player, who now looks well off his game.

Agreed,quite how much longer this long suffering side have to put up with Lam is down to Lenegan now.

Re: Harlequins RU : Thu Jul 01, 2021 4:35 pm  

IL isn’t going to sack Lam. Not even if it’s another 75-0 result v Saints. For the life of me I can’t see why but there you go. Probably because of our ‘best ever start’ which was a cover up of the real issues which we could all see and have come to the fore.

In fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lam extended.

Re: Harlequins RU : Thu Jul 01, 2021 5:04 pm  

100% Warrior wrote:

In fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lam extended.

<buys stock in pitchforks>

Re: Harlequins RU : Thu Jul 01, 2021 5:05 pm  

And if Quins have no further use for Marcus Smith and that Dombrandt fella...

Re: Harlequins RU : Thu Jul 01, 2021 5:44 pm  

There’s more chance of Lam’s contract being extended than being sacked mid season

Re: Harlequins RU : Fri Jul 02, 2021 6:05 am  

If his contract is extended I won't be pumping any money into the club