Aye. Watched it with mixed bunch of fc and kr inclined fans and all agreed whilst wasn't a great game it was kept falsely close by the merry whistler.

Dont call me surely

When they deserve praise, i will praise them. When they dont i wont. If you read my post, i praised French saying God help us if he gets an injury.



I have praised many of the players and the team when they have played well. I cannot and will not praise the dross they have served up in the past 3 games and for much of last season.



I see nothing to suggest we are headed for anything but more of the same of last season. Next week will be a big wake up call if Hull are on point.



If the truth hurts and does not buy me any friends on here, then so be it.

I'm firmly on the fence on this. There is a fair bit of truth in what TE says; there is an awful lot of very poor rugby out there, and fans have a right to deserve better. For most of the first half, we were outplayed by a very ordinary Toronto side. But the are some good signs: Hastings and French, the progress of Harry Smith, and the pro-Wigan comments about the Toronto tries and the Burgess strip were also fair, we didn't get much from the ref. Still, I feel we are still behind the top teams, and cannot look forward to Hull with confidence. It will be a real test for us and our coach, that's for sure.

Well we made hard work of that. Thank Christ we signed Hastings and French, and that young lad Smith looked confident and skilfull. But that pack has to up the ante !



Unless we get them firing soon, we will get mullered by Hull .

No mate, we're just bored less of your constant whining. I have a 5 year old who whines less than you. If your bored, switch off and don't watch. Then the rest of us don't have to read your constant stream of drivel. It really is as simple as that... unless of course you actually like whining in which case, as you were. I fully expect to see you here again though. Unfortunately.

First half was still scrappy and way too 'one out' but we showed real promise in the 2nd. I think we'd have taken hold of that game much earlier but for a 12 point turnaround due to inept reffing (again). We were getting on top but instead of going 16-4 up it was 10 all which seemed to put us on the back foot for 10 mins or so.



Some good stuff played in patches and, whilst I understand those saying we might struggle against Hull, I think that depends on the team we put out. Bullock has to stay in the team, hopefully to be joined by at least one of Burgess or Flower with Twenty five minute Tony (have to be fair!) making way. The difference between Clubb and Bullock was so marked it would have been easy to mistake which was having his first run out of the season.



Hastings looks to be settling in more each game and was probing the defense far more this week. French was class. Enough said. Just a shame that last chip over didn't quite come off. Smith looks the real deal. Give him the game time and he'll flourish.



Other positives: Faz bouncing back from a poor performance last week. Ran some great lines and that inside pass to French..just wow! Amir Burrough's cameo. Looked like he has the makings of a decent impact interchange hooker. Solid debut from Clark and Budgie showing some pace again.



Negatives: Took us too long to get into the game. As other's have said, we can't afford that against the better teams. Clubb. O'Loughlin's eye. Budgie under the high ball and general ball security. Clubb. The ref (Jesus, what's happened to him? He can't go a match without making numerous mistakes). Clubb. Clubb.



A mixed bag but enough there, especially with the likes of Manfredi, Gildart, Burgess, Flower, Greenwood, Powell and the young guns to slot in, to be optimistic.

You cover all bases don’t you. If we beat Hull it will be because they didn’t play well and if Hull beat us it’s because we are e. You’ve already set out your stall and that one sentence allows you to slate them either way.

We struggled to put away a Championship side who had lost one of their leaders in the warm up in Wilkin and lost one of their halves a few minutes into the game in Cunningham. They lost a player to concussion and 1 to the sin bin and that’s how we made the score look respectable. A win is a win but it’s 2019 all over again, the minute we come up against a top team in a big game we will get turned over. And don’t quote the Warrington game, we were lucky and they were down to 11 men.



We have a very talented squad but this team, you can spot it a mile off, we look like a poorly coached side. As if they’re taking to the field not really knowing what the game plan is, or without one.



The only positives from Lam are he’s put Hastings back with Farrell and Bibby, also he gave Bullock and Clarke a chance and both did well.



Oh, and Burgess looks like he’s not enjoying being on that pitch, I’m sick of seeing his sulking face, he needs dropping.



Also, Lam out.

Thought Wigan looked really scratchy again and relied heaily on their (excellent) defence in the first half.



A weakened Toronto tired in the second half as expected. Maybe not as doom and gloom as the OP suggests but I've not seen much to suggest Lam is the man for the job. All smells a bit Keiron Cunningham to me.

It was a real mixed bag last night. For long periods it was bring predictable rugby. At other times you saw glimpses of class. Hastings provided 3 assists, French scoring 2 and setting up another from the quick tap, Bullock looked good, Smith showd some good signs. We just need to see improvement each week, which shouldn't he hard as we have not been good for more than a few short periods over the 3 games so far.

Thought Smith and Farrell were Wigan's best. Bullock was good too but not very difficult to improve on those starting props - Clubb a complete waste of space and Partington is powder-puff in the carry, no resistance to contact at all. Far too soon for him to be starting games.



Toronto running out of men turned the game, they weren't exactly worn down by Wigan. Early days, both teams will improve but got to worry about Toronto's depth.

That game should have been 30-0 at half time, Lam is out of his depth.



French is pure class attack wise, I’ll go against the grain and say French to 6 and Hardaker back to 1 when Gildart is fit for our strongest 13.

I think there where some good signs in the second half of what we can be capable of when everything gels but the first half was pretty garbage. I think as soon as Manfredi is back he has to come in and Burgess be dropped. Yes, he scored but his application at the moment is abysmal

Huge test coming up next week v Hull and if we play the same I can’t see anything other than a loss. Lam is well out of his depth for me and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again he feels very Keiron Cunningham.



Yes there were some positive signs but for the most part we were boring, predictable and frustrating to watch.

I’d say our strongest side is :



1 - Hardaker

2 - Manfredi

3 - Gildart

4 - Bibby

5 - Marshall

6 - French

7 - Hastings

8 - Flower

9 - Leuluai

10 - Bullock

11 - Farrell

12 - Greenwood

13 - Lockers



14 - Smithies

15 - Burgess

16 - Byrne

17 - Isa

Slightly different for me and in fact I’ll go for 2 sides I think are our strongest (strange as that sounds)



1. Zak - French

2. Manfredi

3. Gilly

4. Bibby - Zak

5. Marshall

6. French - Smith

7. Jax

8. Burgess

9. Powell

10. Bullock

11. Smithies

12. Partington - Faz

13. Faz - Lockers



14. Flower

15. Isa

16. Havard - Bryne

17. Smith - Bibby - Greenwood

Phil Wilkinson made a good point on his Wigan Today article. It was March 31st when Wigan had 4pts on the table last year.

i got a new phone yesterday, got it out the box and had it on me as i went to a meeting straight after lunch, while i was in there it started making some notification noises, needing updates and stuff, i hurriedly farted about as the bosses were looking at me, trying to put it on silent.



Couple of minutes later it started emitting:



'Don't call me shirley, dont call me shirley'



I got it out of my pocket, turns out i'd put it on Airplane mode.











Carry on

Manfredi, George Burgess, Flower and Powell could be in contention next week

I thought Burgess looked a lot more involved this week, yes he dropped that dolly of a kick but overall he looked a lot more eager and I thought he was matching Marshall for the hard graft clearing our line.

He may well of had another try in the first half except for that shocker of a pass from Farrell (same as last week).

Overall a big improvement from Burgess, maybe knowing Manfredi is almost ready is finally concentrating his mind.

I expected the win if im honest, cant see anything but a long season for the Wolfpack and the relegation battle that surely awaits them.



so im not going to proclaim the new dawn is here but the team did a job, made hard going at times but once they wore them down only one winner.



Hastings caught my eye, always chatting and directing the team round, can only improve things as the season moves along.

Same here, I don't get the ridiculous level of negativity in this thread. I wasn't happy at HT because it was obvious they were missing a few and I said we ought to put at least 30 on them, which we did in the end. The first half was very much about wearing the opposition down with very conservative rugby, we completed at 90% and didn't make any errors, and I think that was important after last week. As a paying spectator, I don't particularly enjoy watching it but I understand the tactic.



But when we turned it on, it was good to watch - Farrell's inside pass to French was almost impossible to defend. As well as Hastings and French having strong games in the backs, it was good to see Joe Bullock's contribution and I thought Smithies made good metres with ball in hand. On the negative side, a lot of ball watching within our 20m led to their tries and we couldn't stop their offloads. Not getting carried away, it's 3 games in with a lot of new combinations against weak opposition. Next Sunday will give us an idea of how we compete at the top end of the table.



A couple of people have mentioned the referee's performance. I don't understand how a bloke can ref one half in one way and come out with a completely different style of officiating after halftime. I don't know who the officials talk to at HT or whether they get reviewed by Ganson or the video ref, but the conspiracy theories being shouted out about Sky wanting to see an 'upset' seem as good an explanation as any. This sort of inconsistency within one game is very frustrating for the spectators and especially for the players. After Isa (legally) pasted their forward and Hastings blew up and got penalised, I thought the game might get away from us, but thankfully the team regained their composure.

Anyway a bit of positivity, at the end of Round 3 we're either going to be joint top or just two points off the top.

On that point I have been reminded that wasn't Isa himself clattered last season at Anfield, dropped the ball as a result and the very same ref gave the knock on?