EagleEyePie

Has Shorrocks actually impressed? I had a feeling Lam signed him purely for his utility value but the utility tag is always a bit of a misnomer as he's played multiple positions and only ever played well in one, which is loose forward, where he's very impressive.

Good performance from Catalans even with some players absent. Supposedly that's the best team that Wigan can field so I think that tells you the pre-season pessimism from myself and few other Wigan fans was well founded. Nobody in that Wigan front row was dominant. For years and years we've been saying Wigan could be a handy side with a couple of decent props. We've got props who occasionally put in good performances (Havard, Singleton) but there's a real lack of consistency from the middle forwards and they get outfought far too often. We know Isa isn't good enough but Pearce-Paul's start to the season has made me long for the days of out-of-form John Bateman. Powell's impressive 40/20 masked a dire performance where he seemed to make wrong decisions again and again and offered nothing of value from 9. I can accept some of his limitations when he's a steady influence but he was poor tonight. There's little point having O'Neill on the bench when he plays a similar game. I'll forgive Harry Smith his few mistakes because he still created enough to almost single-handedly win us the game but the chances kept going begging. A good performance which might have been better had Cust done anything to assist. We can beat a few teams but we won't be beaten any good teams this year.

I was just setting you up to highlight his many excellent qualities. Someone has to provide the assist. You're right though, he's got great qualities that don't get enough focus. I was merely pointing out that in Super League there isn't much that the more highly rated wingers can do that Marshall can't. His record and performances speaks for itself.

I think it would be difficult to find another player in Super League who offers better value than Marshall. He's not likely to attract attention from Australia because of his size. The same thing probably holds him back from becoming a regular international. That means he's unlikely to command star wages. You look at players like Makinson, McGillvary and Hall and they are/were top international wingers and they'll be paid as such. Even some of our previous wingers like Charnley, Manfredi and Burgess seemed to be more highly thought of. Those players might be more suited to playing at the very highest level but Super League isn't the highest level and a lot of what makes players like that so good is superfluous. The truth is Wigan don't get much less from Marshall than we would from a player like Makinson.

To be honest while I thought it was a shoulder charge and should have been a penalty I also thought the reaction from Welsby should have resulted in the penalty being reversed. Wrong call but the end result was correct. The Hurrell one was a red. Late shoulder charge and secondary contact to the head.

I'm in the camp of people who think the coach doesn't make a massive difference at this level. I mean everything I read about Matt Parish from Australian based press was far from complimentary but the guy got Samoa to a World Cup final. Kristian Woolf has already proven himself a pretty good coach but he was bested by Parish and Samoa too. People are now suggesting our route to the final was easy as if Samoa were pushovers, clearly buying into the hype of the opening game when we caught them cold and then some. Samoa were the favourites for that game because they had quality players. They were tipped to go far because of the strength of NRL stars they had. They didn't become terrible because England battered them. The only reason England were favourites for the semi was the opening game result. In the semi England put in a pretty disappointing performance and still took the game to golden point against a fairly evenly matched opponent. That's not good enough, but it's also not so disastrous that it requires so much soul searching. Wane only had a handful of games in charge and most of them were games he couldn't pick his preferred team for various reasons. That leads me to the next point. His team selection was always going to be criticised because every England coach has their team selection criticised. It was quite heavily reliant on players he was most familiar with and those who had been there and done it previously (Hill, Cooper, Hall) but given the lack of meaningful preparation isn't that sort of obvious? Any coach is going to do that because it's common sense. He still gave opportunities to newer players like Dom Young but made sure there were players he could rely upon. I don't think the arguments about picking his 'Wigan mates' stands up to much scrutiny given the names people were suggesting should have been included are hardly star players likely to give the Aussies much pause for thought. Ultimately many of the players who failed to perform in the semi final were ones who had previously performed well throughout the tournament. Was anyone calling for Welsby not to be included for that semi final? He was quality in the tournament right until that last game. I don't think you can put that all on Wane and Welsby will be all the better for that tough experience. Having said that, I think his reliance on McIlorum was a big mistake. I get that we weren't exactly blessed with quality hooking options but it seemed like it made the decision easy for himself and it shouldn't have been. McIlorum may have been Catalans player of the year last season but he's a long way from his best these days. Every coach has his favourites and every coach has bias, but it was a step too far and hopefully Wane has realised that. It may be making excuses but I think if you pick a coach that you think is the right person for the job you have to give them the time and the means to be successful. That includes having enough competitive games to give players and combinations a try. That doesn't mean I think he should be given until the next world cup. If we actually have some Autumn internationals and perform poorly then it's hard to argue he should continue as we should be seeing some progression.

I'm expecting Cas to win this. We tend to struggle when we go there and I think the win against Wakefield was terrible preparation because we got an easy win with little effort when really we could have done with a challenge. I think it can be difficult to get the mindset right when coming off a big win and then going to a ground where you find things tough. I don't really think the Wakefield game gave any indication what had improved from the previous game or what we need to work on. Cas actually showed some threat against Saints but their ability to finish off chances was woeful. They showed a real threat on their left edge and that's where Wigan looked very weak against Rovers. They could potentially cut us apart. I'm hoping Wigan can front up in the forwards but I'm not confident. I'm going 24-20 to Cas

Shorrocks would be a very handy player at Leigh. He's been unlucky at Wigan given he's competing for the 13 shirt with Smithies. He was one of the few stand out players in 2021 when Smithies was having a bit of second season syndrome, then last year Shorrocks had his second season dip while Smithies established himself. Now that Brad O'Neill has broken through he's a much better fit as he's actually a hooker but covers 13 too. Shorrocks doesn't actually offer sufficient cover at 9. I really rate Shorrocks as a ball playing forward and Leigh could get a lot out of him. He's got a good passing game and often plays like an extra pivot and he gets all over the pitch in defence with an exceptional work rate. Play him at 13 and Leigh have themselves a good player. If Lam is signing him to play hooker though it's absolute madness. He can't pass from the floor comfortably or consistently and it completely stilted Wigan's attack when he was played there. If you want a hooker just sign a hooker. He's surely being signed to play 13.

Unfortunately for Wakefield their performance was so bad it's hard to be particularly enthusiastic about Wigan scoring 60 points. It was very, very easy for Wigan. To give us some credit our defence was impressive throughout and we kept up the intensity for most of the 80 minutes but there was very little set up required to score points in attack and the line speed down the middle meant even our not so strong pack of forwards just rolled all over them. Even on the couple of occasions Wakefield had repeat sets near the Wigan line they didn't remotely look like scoring. Hopefully the win gives the Wigan players a bit of confidence after a tough opening game but unfortunately it's poor preparation for what is always a tricky away game for us at Cas.

I wouldn't say it's that remarkable in relation to where Saints strength lies. Only one of those mentioned above is a forward and it's the forwards that have been the key to Saints success over the last few years and also, going even further back, the reason they were still competitive even when the outside backs and halves were hit and miss. Roby in particular is just so good at getting the most out of a pack of forwards. You can generally get away with some weaker players in the backs if you're really dominant up front because teams don't get many opportunities to target those players weaknesses. It also helps when you've got quality players to fill in for the injured backs/halves. Even with Walmsley missing I thought Paasi was outstanding, Lees, Batchelor and Knowles are England internationals while Sironen was very impressive, as was Mata'utia when he wasn't banned. There's so much strength there that any team is likely to lose the forward battle even if there are some weaknesses on the flanks to be exploited.

I'm amazed anyone is suggesting Partington is better than Smithies having watched both of them for years. Though perhaps it's because one still plays for Wigan and the other no longer does. Smithies was one of our best players last year. He was strong going forward which Partington was really weak at, his defence was probably up there with the best in the league (best tackle success % in SL for forwards who played more than 4 games). He was in that Bateman mould of a few years ago where even if the team was playing badly he'd be noticeably putting the effort in and getting himself about the field. Both Smithies and Partington are liable to do stupid things but Smithies conceded surprisingly few penalties last year too. It's that tendency to do something massively stupid every so often which is his biggest drawback because he wasn't among our worst offenders in conceding penalties. Still a bit to work on in terms of handling and offloading ability but he showed a bit more of that when playing in the academy so he's got the ability but just needs to bring it into his game at Super League level. Partington does have some good handling skills though but his lack of impact going forward meant Smithies was always going to be more effective than him whether at 13 or as a prop. Smithies also much more consistent in defence too, as mentioned he had the best tackle success of any regular forward in Super League at 98% whereas Partington's was 2nd lowest among Wigan's forwards last year. I reckon Partington will be a late bloomer though and he'll do well for the increased game time he'll get at Salford. He's not a bad player, just couldn't outperform Smithies at any point and they pretty much had the same role for the team.

Just let us have this one. We spent last year watching Jake Bibby's invisible man impression and anything is impressive compared to that.

Smith's kicking was up there with the best in the league last season. It's one game in poor conditions. Even Coote missed what should have been a simple kick when he was kicking into the wind and I don't think Lewis kicked any going that way either. Smith then kicked his one conversion going the opposite way. Not really a cause for concern given Smith's 80% success rate last year was despite a huge number of them being touchline conversions. Needs a few more games before writing him off.

Pretty much exactly what I expected. Rovers energetic and Wigan very lethargic. It's the opening game of the season so no reason to panic from a Wigan point of view, but definitely more concerns arising from that game than reasons to be optimistic. I was worried about our pack and sure enough it was a poor display. Cooper played reasonably well, Singleton was good for his standards (which aren't very high) but I was disappointed with the lack of impact from Havard, Byrne and Ellis. Farrell was anonymous which is rare but he's getting on a bit and we can't rely on him to be an 8 or 9 out of 10 every game, but it's been clear for years that we're a bit weak without an in form Farrell. Jai Field had an absolute shocker but hopefully that's just rustiness. Wardle was impressive and I thought Harry Smith did well too (ignore the goalkicking, the conditions were poor for kickers and too much was made of the misses). Ultimately looking at the Wigan bench there was no one to change the game. Tom Forber had an outstanding pre-season at hooker. I don't want to be too critical of the coaching staff but why send Forber out on loan and pick O'Neill who just didn't impress in the trial games? There is some quality in the Wigan side but there's an awful lot of average and most of it is in the pack. Full credit to Rovers who just outplayed us pure and simple.

Wigan haven't exactly had the best of records against Rovers in recent years. They've been a very difficult side for us to face. Obviously we won this fixture last year but we had a point to prove with a new head coach and coming off the back of a poor season. It's a bit different this year and it's now Hull KR with a new head coach looking to put a marker down and also facing his former club. I'm genuinely leaning a little bit more towards Hull KR for this one. I still have some doubts about our pack but we've also got some newcomers with a point to prove and some youngsters who will hopefully be stronger this year. I'm looking forward to it.

Not sure I'd like to be wearing that mascot costume around all those flames. Might need another new mascot before the end of the night

Are Leigh doing their pre-match warm up on the other side of Wigan borough? Wells was chasing them for miles

If you picked the best Saints/Wigan 13 you'd probably get 1- Welsby 2- French 3 - Hopoate/Hurrell (King has no form to speak of so it would be blind optimism to pick him) 4 - Wardle 5 - Makinson 6 - Lomax 7 - Dodd 8 - Walmsley 9 - Roby 10 - Paasi 11 - Matautia 12 - Farrell 13 - Knowles Just going number 1-13 doesn't really show anything as Cooper and Havard at Wigan are better than Singleton and Byrne but Paasi is better than both of those and Lees. KPP is better than Isa but Matautia and Batchelor are better than both based on form (I've got some hope for KPP though). You can say some of those decisions are quite close but that's 10 Saints players and 3 Wigan players. It's a big difference even if there are some fine margins between selections. And despite Wigan having a very strong backline it's the pack that tends to be where it matters.

It's certainly hard to see anyone really threatening Saints unless they have an absolutely horrendous year with injuries. It's difficult to maintain success in a sport with a salary cap given most players value will rise with good form and being part of a successful team. Saints have managed to retain most of their best players, move players on and sign the right players whilst also having the strongest side. It's been difficult for teams to close the gap because few teams have been able to match Saints in those aspects. There will always be a nearest challenger but that team tends to be different each year because the teams below haven't been able to achieve that same consistency with recruitment and retention. I also agree completely with the assessment of Wigan. Yes we've strengthened our centres massively this year but it wasn't our centres that stopped us reaching the Grand Final it was our pack. Cooper has been quality but that's a shrewd signing rather than a major signing. He's not as good as he used to be but is the right sort of prop. After that though it's the youngsters in Havard and Byrne who haven't yet shown ability to be a top 5 SL prop which is where we'd need them to be. Our recent signings of Ellis and Mago have ultimately been failures, whereas Paasi was probably better than Walmsley for Saints last year. There's the difference. Saints signed a quality prop, Wigan signed two duds for a pack that's already weaker than theirs. We're now weaker in the back row too. It ain't happening for us this year unless players like Havard, Byrne and KPP start to hit their peak. Warrington look to have recruited well and will be far, far better than last year which was just an anomaly. I reckon Wire will finish top given they have a real point to prove but Saints will be stronger when it matters. Wire definitely the strongest challengers on paper. Huddersfield have recruited well and it might be their time to push on and there's often a less fancied team that performs well, but ultimately it just looks like picking who will be this years runner up because there's no real weakness shown from Saints yet to suggest their dominance will end any time soon.

I'm sure the idea is that Salford will eventually become the parasites and be able to lure the best players from other Super League clubs. It's hard to argue against them being the best run club in the competition when you consider performances against resources. But ultimately a 7 year contract doesn't mean NRL clubs will have to cough up any more than if he was on a 2 year contract. His value stays the same because it's relative to his ability and the ability of other players available. It does mean Salford can at least try to hold out for a fee any time a team does come in for him though, so it's helpful in that respect.

Similar to what Wigan did when Maguire first arrived at the club and announced a leadership team. However, I doubt this will make any difference whatsoever. Every top club needs multiple leaders within the team. The one person who is named captain doesn't necessarily make a huge difference in RL. Similarly, any good coach can develop leadership qualities within the squad even if there's already a captain. I can only see this as something that won't have a positive or negative benefit, but people will absolutely feed into whichever narrative fits how Leeds perform this year.

This seems like a bit of PR more than anything as there's always a way out of contracts for either party. It won't increase a potential transfer fee because there's always a limit to a players value and transfer fees are essentially just paying to cancel a contract rather than paying out the remaining years. There's also almost always going to be another player available for nothing. Any NRL release clause pretty much makes the length of contract irrelevant too. It looks and good for Salford though which is probably the idea.

Last season Wigan put on some really good attacking plays direct from the scrum in the first few games. By the middle to later part of the season I don't think we had a single scrum in an attacking position that didn't result in a differential penalty because the defence just deliberately went offside so they could get to Field and French. Unsurprisingly I think it's an excellent rule change. It's the best attacking set piece in the game and we need to ensure that it can be used to its full advantage. Not that I blame the teams for deliberately being offside. It was quite obviously the best option in the circumstances but that's why laws need to be tweaked from time to time.

Wigan 32 Salford 4 Comfortable win in the end for Wigan. We started off the first half well but there was a clear difference between the starting middles of Cooper, Havard and Smithies and then the replacement of Mago, Singleton and Ellis, who didn't have the same impact and made a few errors. Salford ended the first half looking more dangerous but the late French try from a loose ball gave us some breathing room that arguably we didn't deserve as Salford already had two tries disallowed. The second half was much more straightforward. Cade Cust sparked a tight second half to life with a clever chip for Field to score. Cust was impressive throughout which is a big positive for Wigan. Miski then scored two cracking tries later in the game to put it to bed. For Wigan I thought the main stand outs were Cust, who had a hand in most of the good things Wigan did, Havard, who was the best forward on the field, and King, who ran strong throughout and caused some problems with his offloads. No real dramas for Wigan although I was disappointed with the trio of Ellis, Mago and Singleton mentioned above so team selection for the SL opener could be interesting. Despite only being a brief cameo Tom Forber looked the best of the 3 hookers we had on show today too. Salford would have caused more problems had Ackers been on the field longer. Even though Wigan tended to dominate possession the speed of the ruck was always a threat. You can really see how Salford are capable of having some sublime performances some weeks and then looking awful for others.

Barrow 26 Wigan 14 A good competitive game overall. The first half was a bit of a slog in very windy conditions. Barrow pulled ahead in the second half by shifting the ball a bit more and getting the ball to their edges where Wigan struggled to deal with them. There was a small hint that Wigan might be able to pull it back but we weren't clinical enough in the second half. I also thought Barrow dealt very well with having the wind against them in the first half and made better use of the wind advantage in the second. The difference in experience probably told in that regard. Their outside backs were also much stronger going into contact where Wigan's backs really struggled to make ground out of our own 20. Tom Forber at hooker was Wigan's stand out, but Zach Eckersley was also good at left centre (I can see why the club weren't too upset with letting Sam Halsall go) and Harvie Hill had another strong game down the middle. The fringe first teamers got a game - Miski, Mago, Ellis, Shorrocks and O'Neill. Miski scored twice but didn't really excel. He puts plenty of effort with his carries but he wasn't really a threat. Mago had a poor first stint but was much more threatening when he returned and caused problems with his offloads. Ellis didn't do much in his one 25-30 minute spell. Shorrocks was busy as usual and heavily involved but conceded too many penalties. O'Neill was solid but we were much better with Forber on the field.