Magic Superbeetle wrote:
How about you can keep winning academy grand finals and our academy will keep producing players who win the grand final with you consoling yourself “but we have a better academy” (so basically, I am more than happy to keep the status quo!)
Oh and
a) the Cunningham years brought us to the lowly point of 5th (a position we have never finished lower than in SL) and semi final rugby. I am sure plenty of teams would call that a satisfactory season.
b) 26 years (aka a quarter of a century) may not be when RL started but it’s rapidly becoming “living memory”. I was born in the 90s, started watching RL with my dad and Granddad in 96, it’s all I’ve ever known. I’m by no means the youngest any more, and the cohort of fans who remember the great Wigan dominance are no longer the majority. But keep consoling yourself with things that happened before I was born.
We did that in 2013, 2016 and 2018. Leeds did it from 2004-2015 These things work in cycles. Holbrook and Woolf changed you for the good as Maguire/Wane did with us.
If you get the overseas signings wrong and the coach wrong then it doesn't matter how good your academy is TBH you won't win anything. (see Warrington)
Saints are getting it right at the moment (pretty much spot on TBH) anjd hopefully with the new appointments Wigan will start to do so again. The sport needs the big 3 clubs to be challenging one another.