Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Sun Jul 25, 2021 12:45 pm  

MattyB wrote:

Yeah was watching some of the Olympics last night. Really packing the crowds in they were.

And I don't think you can compare the Euros and Wimbledon to a SL fixture against Wakefield.

Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Sun Jul 25, 2021 1:00 pm  

And a lot of people are comparing it to the Hundred in cricket but they’re literally giving tickets away. I’ve got six for a game at Old Trafford next week.

Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Sun Jul 25, 2021 1:47 pm  

We thought there was more than 5500 at the game. Not massively more but the announced figure did seem low.

Any number of reasons, the main one Covid. Anyone who's uncertain about the law, regulations or guidance will err on the side of caution. Wigan last week had one of the worst Covid numbers in the country. Again, anyone worried would stay away.

Then there is the rugby. At times its been utterly dreadful. We all know about injuries but often the teams main play makers have been playing. Clueless, headless chickens, disorganised are some of the words used to describe the standard of play. Lam's team selections, interchanges and game plan, or lack of are many of the reasons supporters are unhappy the way the team has been playing.

Things will improve and we will get used on how to handle Covid.
Onward and upward, Come on Wigan!

Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:23 pm  

I think the fact it looked more than 5,500 is down to the fact that we’ve seen crowds not too dissimilar to that announced as being 10/11,000 in the past. That’s because they’d count all the season ticket holders regardless of them turning up or not.

The club just seems totally uninterested in trying things to get the crowds in. I read a Wire fan saying he picked his half season tickets up the other day. Us? Nothing, no word on that being an option. I guess we’ve laid the marketing team off to save costs? It seems like we’ve laid most people off going off the lack of communication from the club, the shrinking content on social media and Wigan TV. We need a huge injection of energy from somewhere, energy and investment in the right people to push the club forward.

Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Sun Jul 25, 2021 10:20 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

I think the fact it looked more than 5,500 is down to the fact that we’ve seen crowds not too dissimilar to that announced as being 10/11,000 in the past. That’s because they’d count all the season ticket holders regardless of them turning up or not.

The club just seems totally uninterested in trying things to get the crowds in. I read a Wire fan saying he picked his half season tickets up the other day. Us? Nothing, no word on that being an option. I guess we’ve laid the marketing team off to save costs? It seems like we’ve laid most people off going off the lack of communication from the club, the shrinking content on social media and Wigan TV. We need a huge injection of energy from somewhere, energy and investment in the right people to push the club forward.

Response this evening on Twitter from Lenagan (Not Ian but his son Simon):

Hopefully this thread explains at least some of the recent @WiganWarriorsRL supporter ticketing issues. We don't make decisions everyone would agree with all the time - but at least we try and share the thinking behind them.

The background to this issue is that the Club were without our normal functioning ticket office (that we share with Wigan Athletic) due to them being in administration. We recognised a sale was imminent and that it would be...

beneficial to share a ticket office going forward - implementing our own full ticket office from scratch was simply not a sensible commercial option. Launching season tickets, with temporary staff from the former ticket office, we had limited knowledge of when fans would be...

allowed back, other than it would be 25% capacity for a period. We couldn’t leave tickets on sale indefinitely - there needed to be a period between tickets being sold on our temporary manual system and exporting those onto the new ticket office system run by the new owners of...

the stadium. With more clarity on restricted attendances, we took the view that rather than selling additional part-season tickets we would sell individual tickets for 25% capacity games to ensure we did not have to ballot and to try and maximise yields...

Attendances have obviously been disappointing, I suspect for a number of reasons - but at the time there was no evidence to suggest there was still a significant demand for season tickets. At this point, rather than selling a season ticket for the remaining 5/6 games during...

the summer holidays we are looking at creative ways to increase attendances in an affordable manner. Please understand that like many other businesses we are having to make difficult decisions far more rapidly than usual. Inevitably not all of those decisions turn out to be as...

successful as we'd like them to be. But I can assure you that they are all made with the good of the Club and the supporters at heart. Please continue to bear with us during these unprecedented times...

When the fabric of all our lives has been torn apart as it has over this last year and a half, it's so vital that we stick together as a community, as a game, and as a club. Sometimes it's all we have. Hope this helps...

Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Mon Jul 26, 2021 7:16 am  

Fair enough I suppose but I’d have to ask when they’re thinking of making a start on pushing tickets for games and trying things to get people in? He says they’ll be looking at creative ways to get people in. That’s great but ‘now’ is the time surely. They’ve had one game where they could sell as many tickets as they wanted and next week they’ll have the second and there’s no sign of doing anything other than putting a post on the website saying ‘tickets on sale’ yet.

Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Mon Jul 26, 2021 8:00 am  

Father Ted wrote:

We thought there was more than 5500 at the game. Not massively more but the announced figure did seem low.

Any number of reasons, the main one Covid. Anyone who's uncertain about the law, regulations or guidance will err on the side of caution. Wigan last week had one of the worst Covid numbers in the country. Again, anyone worried would stay away.

Then there is the rugby. At times its been utterly dreadful. We all know about injuries but often the teams main play makers have been playing. Clueless, headless chickens, disorganised are some of the words used to describe the standard of play. Lam's team selections, interchanges and game plan, or lack of are many of the reasons supporters are unhappy the way the team has been playing.

Things will improve and we will get used on how to handle Covid.
Onward and upward, Come on Wigan!

Stop blaming the situation on Covid19 and in the case of Wigan, on Lam and face the reality that the game as a whole is in dire straits compared to other team games.

For example, as a result of declining crowds at county games, Cricket introduced one day and twenty twenty games to bring in the crowds which proved to be more entertaining and exciting.

In contrast, Rugby League has in the eyes of many supporters has gone backwards and become stereotype with less variety in play due to constant rule changes including the decision to scrap contested scrums which is part and parcel of the game, less quality players, no characters or personalities like in the past.

The fact that Wigan are still around the top four clubs is only because of the poorer squads of most of the other clubs which is also not helped by having thirty six clubs in three divisions when there is less quality players being produced due to not every Super League Club having Academy teams and less people attending games like there also used to be.

A situation which is also not helped by some Super League clubs still playing on sub standard grounds and in the case of clubs like Swinton, no ground in their own town.

The game needs a complete shake up from top to bottom before the situation goes even worse!

Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Mon Jul 26, 2021 5:31 pm  

I'l say what I always say about contested scrums, the use of the corner flag, 40/20s, etc etc

It's a naturally tendency of mankind to think everything was bettor when they were kids. Who saw all the best bands, eh?

I watched (the highlights of) the RU Test between the Lions and SA yesterday. Are those piles of bodies what people want to go back to?

I'll tell you what: I'll wager that 95% of those who want to see contested scrums and all that, are 60+, more likely 70+. Those people (and I include myself) are not the future of the game.

Ask anyone who's under 25 at a game if they'd like to see a return to contested scrums. The answer will either be "No way!", or "What's a contested scrum, Granddad!"

Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Mon Jul 26, 2021 5:34 pm  

And people may not like the way the game is played in the NRL, but I'll say this: it is the future. Fast,and exciting. What modern audiences, not a bunch of old coffin-dodgers, want!

Re: Wigan squad to face Wakefield on Friday : Mon Jul 26, 2021 6:04 pm  

moto748 wrote:

And people may not like the way the game is played in the NRL, but I'll say this: it is the future. Fast,and exciting. What modern audiences, not a bunch of old coffin-dodgers, want!

I disagree wholeheartedly.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the fast expansive exciting rugby but I’m also a sucker for the tough ground out games. I feel that in SL we did have a balance between the 2 a few years ago but the scale has tipped to conservative, dogged, safe rugby.

I did watch the NRL most weeks (work dependant) but found it so confusing with their rules v our rules v international rules. It’s ridiculous. We have 3 codes of the same game, so I chose our code over the up themselves Aussies. I may only watch Wigan and a few select other teams but I’d rather that than watch whatever code of RL the Aussies want to play.