Re: 5 games to define the future : Tue Jun 11, 2019 3:24 pm  

I genuinely hoped the Hull KR game would be a turning point in our season. We had 2 weeks to prepare for that game and had a number of players back in contention. Unfortunately, Lam wasn’t here to oversee the preparation due to his family bereavement and good on him for putting his family first. I’m not saying it would have been much better if he had, just that it’s even more disruption.
It’s no secret that I’ve stuck by Lam this season which even I admit has been awful, barring the very rare glimpse of quality. However, I’m still not convinced that someone else could have done much better in the circumstances but we’ll never know. I’ve always maintained that whoever our coach is will need to be supported by some significant investment which in all honesty, I just can’t see coming anymore. It’s true that our rivals are getting stronger whilst we are going backwards. I’m just not convinced that Lam is to blame for it.

Re: 5 games to define the future : Tue Jun 11, 2019 3:30 pm  

Bigredwarrior wrote:

I genuinely hoped the Hull KR game would be a turning point in our season. We had 2 weeks to prepare for that game and had a number of players back in contention. Unfortunately, Lam wasn’t here to oversee the preparation due to his family bereavement and good on him for putting his family first. I’m not saying it would have been much better if he had, just that it’s even more disruption.
It’s no secret that I’ve stuck by Lam this season which even I admit has been awful, barring the very rare glimpse of quality. However, I’m still not convinced that someone else could have done much better in the circumstances but we’ll never know. I’ve always maintained that whoever our coach is will need to be supported by some significant investment which in all honesty, I just can’t see coming anymore. It’s true that our rivals are getting stronger whilst we are going backwards. I’m just not convinced that Lam is to blame for it.

I admire how you've stuck to your guns, and I agree with sections of your post mate. In terms of recruitment we don't seem to be investing (so far at least) in the same quality of some other SL clubs. However, I do believe it would be short-sighted to think the coach doesn't hold a large amount of responsibility in when a team goes from champs to god awful.

I don't know why you continuously turn a blind eye to him. Surely you can see the coach has at least something to do with such a dramatic drop off.

Re: 5 games to define the future : Tue Jun 11, 2019 4:54 pm  

Last Son of Wigan wrote:

I admire how you've stuck to your guns, and I agree with sections of your post mate. In terms of recruitment we don't seem to be investing (so far at least) in the same quality of some other SL clubs. However, I do believe it would be short-sighted to think the coach doesn't hold a large amount of responsibility in when a team goes from champs to god awful.

I don't know why you continuously turn a blind eye to him. Surely you can see the coach has at least something to do with such a dramatic drop off.

Of course I can. My point is that in my opinion the drop off was likely regardless of who took the reins. This was always going to be a transitional season even if we’d stayed relatively fit. We’ve been decimated all season up to now and that’s why I said I hoped for the Hull KR game to be the turning point given that we had a decent squad to choose from.
I’ve said we won’t lose in June so it’s one down, three to go. Wins are our primary objective now and good performances need to become consistent. We’ve now lost Flower for a bit so our already weak pack has just lost its best prop which won’t help.
I totally agree Lam shoulders responsibility for our position, just not all of it.

Re: 5 games to define the future : Tue Jun 11, 2019 7:18 pm  

I cannot help to have some sympathy for the situation Lam finds himself in .He was brought in as a stop gap and inherited in my view a severely weakened squad some of who were and still are unproven at Super League level.Clearly injuries have also had an impact.For twenty minutes into the away game at Castleford we looked like a half decent team and whilst injuries to Sammut and Greenwood impacted on us I was alarmed at how easily we imploded at the start
of the second half.Since then we scraped wins against Salford,London,Castleford and on Sunday against Hull KR and could easily have lost all of those games.
I was at Hull on Sunday and I reckon we were lucky to win this game even though we should have had a comfortable lead at half time .What alarmed me was our failure to complete our sets and when we did our kicking game with one exception was abysmal as it has been all season.I won’t call out individual players but suffice to say we are in dire need of some quality recruitments over and above what has already been announced .
Back to Lam and his position of coach .Having sympathy for him is one thing but he has to be judged on results and performances/progress and based upon what I have seen so far I feel that he is out of his depth as Head Coach of Wigan Warriors and also feel that we should terminate his contract .

Re: 5 games to define the future : Tue Jun 11, 2019 11:21 pm  

I think there are a lot of factors that have affected our performances this year.

As much as the coaching and playing staff say otherwise the behind the scenes issues with the Edwards fiasco & the uncertainty it brought about will no doubt of affected them.

Injuries have certainly played a part, particularly those within games. I know it’s not every game but It feels like we finish every game 2 subs short. This creates fatigue and leads to errors.

Hamlin & Mullen’s indiscretions wont have helped either.

Our squad is weaker than last year. Replacing Joel, Sutton, Bateman & Sam with Sammut, Greenwood, Hardaker & contract upgrades weakens us. Add to that the likes of TL & SOL being a year older.

I’ve been supportive of Lam but at the end of the day the head coach is responsible for the teams performances. Those performances have not been good enough. I honestly didn’t think we’d be up near the top of the league but I expected us to be better then what we’ve been.

I think the best thing for the team this year is to announce a contract extension for Lam to try and settle the team down and let them concentrate on rugby. Whether that is the right decision long term is very debatable. We may or may not find out.