Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Sun Sep 05, 2021 8:17 pm  

sergeant pepper wrote:

You won't hear me argue that we aren't playing poorly. We are.

I'm not into this look at the last 6 games stuff tho. It's easy to pick a number of games to prove a point. We're playing badly, but we're 4th in the league too. Leigh are bottom. There's a world of difference between the two.

I ay it all at the feet of Lam btw. Singleton, Powell, Faz, Bateman, Zak, Isa, Gildart (who's been injured) all have something in common - they've all won GF's and they all could be playing better. If it was just one of them I'd blame the player, but 5 or 6 + others who aren't playing well - it has to be the coach.

I doubt we could say the same about Leigh, or even half of the other teams towards the foot of this table. Heck, a lot of them would kill for the side we have. I'll happily say that there's a good team in there. We might not win the GF next year, but we won't be bottom like Leigh are either.

If our starting 6 matches had been our final 6 matches we would be scrapping with Leyth for bottom position. I genuinely think that we are that bad. We are the slowest team in the comp by a country mile.

Yes I agree Lam should pick up most of the flack but the players this season have got away with murder.
The problem is we don’t really have any senior players who should have told IL to bullet Lam or that they would take care of coaching themselves. Zero leaders of any stature or authority within the squad.

I think our problems are much more than the coach.

By the way on current form, and the competition by definition is about current form at this time of the year, who would you feel confident about beating at the moment?

I know I’m a lone voice but unlike others I don’t think the current squad is a good squad in waiting for the right coach. Next season we have no halves, a poor 9 and a non existent 13 and that’s before we consider rank bad “middles”. Oh add to that a no kicking game with a goal kicking conversion of circa 50% and you have bottom 4 material written all over it.

Do I think we can do better? Of course we can but doesn’t mean we will by rights.

We have a long slog ahead of us and a top coach can cover most of the cracks but poor recruiting in the last few years are coming home to roost particularly with lack of leadership within the squad.

Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Sun Sep 05, 2021 8:21 pm  

Fantastic Mr Catpiss wrote:

I've thought this, at times this season he just looks like he's said love it, I'll do it myself, with the amount of drives/hit ups he takes. And he's been caught in possession on the 5th tackle on occasions. Restricting your last tackle options.

You can't imagine that goes down well with the other players.

I wasnt that bothered about your Scoring today, if you did I was expecting 8t to come from a Hastings barge over

He literally has no runners and no platform off which to play so he has no choice. I have no idea what our attacking structure is.

Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:13 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

I think a measure of how little this coach can get from his players is the fact that John Bateman is having the first poor season of his career. Make no bones about it, the lad is absolutely top class, one of the best backrowers in world rugby league and even he is being made to look exceptionally ordinary under this coach.

No coach can make a top class player look ordinary. A top class coach can hone even an established player’s skills and develop young players. Most players coming back from the NRL seem to take some time to adapt.as the game here is different. Bateman may be underperforming but to put the blame solely at Lam’s door is ludicrous.

Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:18 pm  

It's frustrating that we will never get to see Hastings in a good Wigan team. Such a talented, dedicated competitor.

Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Sun Sep 05, 2021 10:07 pm  

Keiththered wrote:

No coach can make a top class player look ordinary. A top class coach can hone even an established player’s skills and develop young players. Most players coming back from the NRL seem to take some time to adapt.as the game here is different. Bateman may be underperforming but to put the blame solely at Lam’s door is ludicrous.

It ain’t solely on Lam granted but it’s a massive part of it IMO, as it is with the fact he’s not got the best out of pretty much any player in three years here. Even Hastings isn’t at his best. He’s playing pretty well by his standards but he’s not come close to reaching the heights of 2019 in his two seasons with us. I don’t think there is a player in the squad Lam could hand on heart say he’s got the best from on a consistent basis over a sustained period of time.

Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Mon Sep 06, 2021 5:43 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

It ain’t solely on Lam granted but it’s a massive part of it IMO, as it is with the fact he’s not got the best out of pretty much any player in three years here. Even Hastings isn’t at his best. He’s playing pretty well by his standards but he’s not come close to reaching the heights of 2019 in his two seasons with us. I don’t think there is a player in the squad Lam could hand on heart say he’s got the best from on a consistent basis over a sustained period of time.

I understand where you are coming from. There is a big difference though between making a top player look ordinary and not getting the best out of a player.

Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:19 am  

Keiththered wrote:

I understand where you are coming from. There is a big difference though between making a top player look ordinary and not getting the best out of a player.

Attitude. Attitude can make an ordinary player look top class and a top class player look ordinary. There’s lots of factors affecting attitude so it can’t be nailed down to Lam but I’d bet my bottom dollar he has a huge part to play in Bateman’s (and others) poor attitude.

Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:57 am  

DannyT wrote:

Why am I not surprised we don’t fully know the rules we are playing under? Just another thing to add a long list of cock-ups from the club this year.

What is the cock up?

We were told if Bullock starts we would lose a sub and from what happened Lam decided to lose a sub so he wasn't forced to re-shuffle and start Bullock?

[Fantastic Mr Catpiss]

Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Mon Sep 06, 2021 8:10 am  

Was bullock not in your 21 man squad, my understanding is this only applies if you add someone that wasn't posted in the squad announcement in the week

[Fantastic Mr Catpiss]

Re: Squad for Wire (Magic) : Mon Sep 06, 2021 8:14 am  

Just checked, he was, thats weird.