Ian Millward : Tue Apr 14, 2020 2:28 pm  

On reflection, what on earth happened in 2006?

Did he take the job too soon after getting sacked at St.Helens?

Watching back on old games from that period was more horrifying than I could remember.

Re: Ian Millward : Tue Apr 14, 2020 3:03 pm  

He took the job in 2005 after Betts 'departed'.

I think the truth is that we lost a lot of quality and experienced players due to Whelan and Lindsay losing interest. At the same time Latics were on the charge into the Premiership so maybe that was the distraction.

We also had the unfortunate passing of Mike Gregory in 2004 and Denis Betts having to fill his shoes.

I don't think anyone at the club had a plan, or any idea how and when to replace our ageing squad. At the end of 2004 we lost Lam (into coaching), O'Connor, C.Smith, Cassidy, Connolly and Farrell. Midway through 2005 we lost Radlinski and Lockers did his ACL. Davico played 5 minutes of a pre-season friendly.

We replaced some incredible quality with bang average or youth players:
Lam - Moran
O'Connor - Seu Seu
Smith - Guisset/Hargreaves
Cassidy - Hansen/Allen/Wild
Connolly - Wild/Brown
Farrell - Beswick/Wild/Hansen

For me the wheels already started to come off towards the end of 2004. Farrell had moved to prop after a lot of injuries and was still carrying us around the pitch. We were lucky in 2 play-off games and then deservedly got hammered by Leeds.

Millward was obviously a good coach and got the best out of Saints but the style of play he wanted - that Saints played so well - we just didn't have the quality or pace at all, especially in the halves.

There was a lot of rumours around the time of him losing the dressing room, a lot of unprofessional attitudes and some other shady things going on but I think that just points back to the lack of experience we had and a 'changing of the guard' culture where the kids sort of took over.

It's hard to say whether Noble actually had that much of an effect on us in 2006. Most fans agree/think it was the signing of Dobson and then Fielden that got us out of a hole. After Noble came, we beat Huddersfield and then lost the next 6 games. I dread to think where we would be now without Dobson and Fielden (and Bryan Fletcher who was massively underrated and I think scored 9 tries in the last 12 games). Thankfully Cas and Wakefield were just as poop as us but I think our fans take most of the credit. The momentum those atmospheres gave us to get out of relegation was incredible. Watching the games back sends shivers down my spine.

Re: Ian Millward : Tue Apr 14, 2020 4:37 pm  

We threw a forward pass straight from the kick off in our opening game and it pretty much summed things up

Re: Ian Millward : Tue Apr 14, 2020 5:08 pm  

Wigg'n wrote:

He took the job in 2005 after Betts 'departed'.

I think the truth is that we lost a lot of quality and experienced players due to Whelan and Lindsay losing interest. At the same time Latics were on the charge into the Premiership so maybe that was the distraction.

We also had the unfortunate passing of Mike Gregory in 2004 and Denis Betts having to fill his shoes.

I don't think anyone at the club had a plan, or any idea how and when to replace our ageing squad. At the end of 2004 we lost Lam (into coaching), O'Connor, C.Smith, Cassidy, Connolly and Farrell. Midway through 2005 we lost Radlinski and Lockers did his ACL. Davico played 5 minutes of a pre-season friendly.

We replaced some incredible quality with bang average or youth players:
Lam - Moran
O'Connor - Seu Seu
Smith - Guisset/Hargreaves
Cassidy - Hansen/Allen/Wild
Connolly - Wild/Brown
Farrell - Beswick/Wild/Hansen

For me the wheels already started to come off towards the end of 2004. Farrell had moved to prop after a lot of injuries and was still carrying us around the pitch. We were lucky in 2 play-off games and then deservedly got hammered by Leeds.

Millward was obviously a good coach and got the best out of Saints but the style of play he wanted - that Saints played so well - we just didn't have the quality or pace at all, especially in the halves.

There was a lot of rumours around the time of him losing the dressing room, a lot of unprofessional attitudes and some other shady things going on but I think that just points back to the lack of experience we had and a 'changing of the guard' culture where the kids sort of took over.

It's hard to say whether Noble actually had that much of an effect on us in 2006. Most fans agree/think it was the signing of Dobson and then Fielden that got us out of a hole. After Noble came, we beat Huddersfield and then lost the next 6 games. I dread to think where we would be now without Dobson and Fielden (and Bryan Fletcher who was massively underrated and I think scored 9 tries in the last 12 games). Thankfully Cas and Wakefield were just as poop as us but I think our fans take most of the credit. The momentum those atmospheres gave us to get out of relegation was incredible. Watching the games back sends shivers down my spine.

Farrell was replaced by Fletcher and the largest was paying money and newton for higham, I think that broke the dressing room

Re: Ian Millward : Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:51 pm  

I watched the 2004 Good Friday game earlier and all the talk was about how Millward had been accusing us of being head hunters in the build up and he was then up to his usual theatrical antics during the game, putting his shocked face on and throwing his arms up. I sat there and it suddenly flooded back we’d then actually hired that moron to be our coach not long after and what’s worse, I wanted us to do it.

Everyone makes mistakes and my gosh he was one.

Re: Ian Millward : Tue Apr 14, 2020 9:50 pm  

Mike Gregory stood down from being head coach in 2004 and died in 2007 .

Moran was signed up because he was Londons top try scorer the year before

Liam Botham was signed up because he was Ian Botham.s son

Michael Withers was signed up and went from a great player to a bad one over night

Uncle Mo and Whelan at this time bought Orrell RU they got relegated the next season.

Soon as Wigan FC got into the Premier League he would not let the Rugby team play on the Friday before a football game on the Saturday as it would "ruin the pitch

Despite all of this crowds went from 10,000-15,000 average!

Re: Ian Millward : Wed Apr 15, 2020 2:52 pm  

Noble signed Withers. He wasn't actually that bad for us. Was backup and only played 7 games.

Noble DID however sign Richie Mathers to replace Chris Ashton

Re: Ian Millward : Thu Apr 16, 2020 12:41 pm  

Wigg'n wrote:

He took the job in 2005 after Betts 'departed'.

I think the truth is that we lost a lot of quality and experienced players due to Whelan and Lindsay losing interest. At the same time Latics were on the charge into the Premiership so maybe that was the distraction.

We also had the unfortunate passing of Mike Gregory in 2004 and Denis Betts having to fill his shoes.

I don't think anyone at the club had a plan, or any idea how and when to replace our ageing squad. At the end of 2004 we lost Lam (into coaching), O'Connor, C.Smith, Cassidy, Connolly and Farrell. Midway through 2005 we lost Radlinski and Lockers did his ACL. Davico played 5 minutes of a pre-season friendly.

We replaced some incredible quality with bang average or youth players:
Lam - Moran
O'Connor - Seu Seu
Smith - Guisset/Hargreaves
Cassidy - Hansen/Allen/Wild
Connolly - Wild/Brown
Farrell - Beswick/Wild/Hansen

For me the wheels already started to come off towards the end of 2004. Farrell had moved to prop after a lot of injuries and was still carrying us around the pitch. We were lucky in 2 play-off games and then deservedly got hammered by Leeds.

Millward was obviously a good coach and got the best out of Saints but the style of play he wanted - that Saints played so well - we just didn't have the quality or pace at all, especially in the halves.

There was a lot of rumours around the time of him losing the dressing room, a lot of unprofessional attitudes and some other shady things going on but I think that just points back to the lack of experience we had and a 'changing of the guard' culture where the kids sort of took over.

It's hard to say whether Noble actually had that much of an effect on us in 2006. Most fans agree/think it was the signing of Dobson and then Fielden that got us out of a hole. After Noble came, we beat Huddersfield and then lost the next 6 games. I dread to think where we would be now without Dobson and Fielden (and Bryan Fletcher who was massively underrated and I think scored 9 tries in the last 12 games). Thankfully Cas and Wakefield were just as poop as us but I think our fans take most of the credit. The momentum those atmospheres gave us to get out of relegation was incredible. Watching the games back sends shivers down my spine.

Good summary. I think maybe a flip-side of the atmosphere playing a part towards the back end was that when the players aren't good enough/inexperienced, the JJB wasn't an easy place to play in the early months of the season. Definitely turned it into a positive come late-summer though.

On Millward, a mixture of poor recruitment, bad luck and him being a horses for courses coach. Able to get a special group of players firing, but probably didn't have the tools to stop the nose-dive when things go wrong.

Re: Ian Millward : Thu Apr 16, 2020 8:29 pm  

Wigg'n wrote:

Noble DID however sign Richie Mathers to replace Chris Ashton

A signing I think we all agreed with at the time.

Re: Ian Millward : Thu Apr 16, 2020 8:51 pm  

Egg Chasing wrote:

A signing I think we all agreed with at the time.

You are probably right, I was definitely guilty of assuming that just because you had done a bit of time in the NRL then you must be decent player, to some extent I still am guilty of this.

On a side note I always thought Mcavoy was solid enough for us yet he also attracted criticism at the time although few players didn’t during that season.