: Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:40 pm
Cruncher wrote:
I don't totally subscribe to this theory that he inherited a pile of crap.
Neither do I. Marketing for example had started to improve before he arrived. Wasn't Simon Collinson here before IL? Can't remember but anyway there were some green shoots showing on that side of it before he got here. And like it or not the deal DW sold the club to IL for has not ham-strung it to some impossibly expensive lease and given the deal included the training facilities at Orrell it gave IL a good platform to start from. I doubt he would have bought it if the thing was a complete basket case. He may be a Wigan fan but he isn't stupid.
There were definitely problems with the prior administration - I think Mo was too old, while Whelan had other priorities and had assumed that the rugby would take care of itself (either that or he'd just planned to throw money at the club and, when the SC was imposed, found that he had no Plan B). But I suspect it's taken IL two years to clear things up mainly because he's his own man and he wanted to make his own judgements about the people currently in place, before going out to find the right replacements if necessary. When you consider it, that would never be a quick fix in the world of RL, where there's a finite number of effective operators.
I think we are starting to see things happen at a much faster rate off-field now and IL and Co seem very pro-active and are not just reacting to events but want to set the pace. This is how Mo & Co were first time around and it has been a long time since I have thought Wigan were pace setters in any off field innovations or ideas. It went away when Mo left to go to the RFL in my opinion and he never got it back when he returned.
Dave
