Actually I seriously doubt it. More likely you can 'cite' 4 things you saw as mistakes...mistakes that everyone in the team was making. No-one was good on Monday but O Loughlin was among the best of a bad bunch. His work rate and desire alone account for that. As usual you have a seriously unbalanced view of this player (and it saddens me to add) so no change there.

Sadly they don't.



If I am honest, given the constraints of the CC I would have Lockers in my team.

He would be in the SR as a "squad player". Nothing special but would do a job.

He certainly would not be captain.

Go on who do we put as captain, someone who has played absolutly brilliant in every game this season, who works his socks off in attack and in defense, who loves playing for wigan, and whos always gonna be under the shadow of a relative

Now this is interesting. In your 'reasoned' opinion, our top tackler (let's call him Mick Cassidy for the sake of argument and to take away any bias) who's desire and effort to the cause cannot be faulted would not be regarded as 'among the better players' even from that abject display on Monday.

As for the other points, he would most definitely be in my squad (also at SR) on his defence alone. If of course you don't regard the likes of Mick Cassidy and his ilk as anything more than 'squad players' then your judgement isn't as good as I took it to be. Every team needs the right balance and makeup of which O Loughlin's type of player is one. It's unfortnate that in this given team he's expected by such as yourself (and I suspect the coaching staff) to be and do more than that and gets criticised for 'not being Andy Farrell or Ellery Hanley'! The reason I put such comments as 'it saddens me to say' when I post regarding this is I would, under normal circumstances, expect someone such as yourself to see past this ridiculous expectation and see the value of a player for what he actually does rather than who he isn't! Again, perhaps I'm giving you credit where , perhaps, it isn't due. C'est la vie.

As for the captaincy issue, I have no axe to grind one way or the other, as I have posted many times before. However, I do know if we were a winning team filled with winning players with a winning mentality his captaincy would never be called into question by anyone...yourself included.

I'm not sure where to start here, as a lot of the points we agree on.


I guess firstly to confirm that we both think he is a SR and should start in the team. Right that's where we agree.


Is he a captain? Never in a million years. Sadly he just doesn't have "it". Many's the time our team has been crying out for a leader to turn it around on the field. Lockers hasn't done it. Now, whether he does it by "leading by example" or bollocking the people on the pitch I don't mind. But sadly he hasn't done it.


I don't expect him to be Faz or Hanley, that would be silly, but equally I will tell it how I see it. He's an average player.

Tbh, comparing him to Cas is wrong imo. Cas was a better player, but hey that's the CC for you.


As I have said on a number of occasions I would like Lockers to move to SR, be relieved of the captaincy, concentrate on his game and produce the workhorse displays that I think he is capable of.


It's easy to be a "captain" when everything is going well ( I can tell you I have seen more examples of this than you could shake a stick at).

The true value of a captain comes through when things are going wrong.

Faz excelled at this (more than any footballer I have seen in the last 25 years). Lockers is hopeless.


Sorry, but that's how I see it m8.

I'll 'do a DaveO' and take it point by point! lol



Where, at International level he has been (even by your own admission on several occassions) outstanding, able to mix it with the very best in the world and receiving the plaudits of the Aussie media and pundits alike, not to mention opposition fans on these very forums! How does that equate with 'being average' as you describe him? The point being, of course, he didn't have the ridiculous expectations put on him and was asked only to do what he does well. No scrap that. Exceptionally well.



I'm not really going to argue the captaincy issue as, if we actually had a Faz (or a Bell or Hanley for that matter) he wouldn't be captain anyway. However, I still haven't heard a viable alternative from our current playing roster. Some even suggested Fielden at the start of the season. How stupid is that looking right now?




See my first response with regards to him 'being avarage'. I think most of your criticisms that I've seen on here stem from comparisons to the above, so to say you don't expect that of him, I think you would have to admit if you were being honest, is simply not true. In fact, it's the main area that I find you blinkered on this as I believe if you took him on his merits rather than constantly comparing him to those greats you'd actually have a more balanced view on him. Just my opionion of course...





The second quote negates the first in my opinion as the 'workhorse displays' you mention where the hallmark of Cassidy's career. I would also say that O Loughlin has proven himself at international level better than Mick. I'm sure for example, but correct me if I'm wrong, that MC never won a MOM at International level. Nevertheless I'm not here to debate the relative merits of the 2 players as I think they were/are both geat servants of this Wigan club. Unfortunately for O Loughlin, one operated from within the greatest sports team of it's generation (any sport) while the other is Sean O' Loughlin!



Agree with all of that apart from the Lockers is hopeless comment. Not as good as his predecessors, definitely; struggling to impose himself during the matches, maybe... but we don't know the extent of his influence off the pitch and in training where I believe he is excellent. I do know that he is universally admired by the players and staff, past and present, so he must do some things right! Hopeless is simply too harsh a criticism and is borne of your lack of balance. I'll take 'not my kind of captain' or 'not what we need right now' or, in fact, anything that takes all things into account. Hopless doesn't do him (or you as a poster) justice. There's another of those 'opinions' of course but there you go!



Perhaps surprisingly, this is where we disagree most! I don't think you do see it that way because when I've had discussions with you in the past regarding O' Loughlin you've been able to take a more reasoned view. You have also shown during these brief posts that you see his value to the team, even if it was damned in faint praise! I actually think you have a 'knee jerk' reaction when it comes to Lockers, one seemingly shared by quite a few people on these boards. As I've said previously, I think it is borne of 'unreasonable comparison' and, again as I've said in the past, let's you down as a poster in my opinion.

Phil.

You spoilt your post with this bit I feel, we're not winning, we don't have a winning mentality and at times like this we need a captain who will turn things round, be the one who keeps fighting and spurring his players on. When Wigan are poor Lockers rarely stands out as the one trying to turn the tide round. In fact at times when all we need is to calm down and have a bit of composure Lockers is the one who goes and gives a penalty away for niggling in the tackle.

Don't get me wrong I like Lockers and his work rate in defence is awesome and he runs in hard but he's not an ideal captain when the chips are down.

I may get shot for this but if Noble hasn't got the balls to drop Fielden then making him captain might give him the kick up the backside he needs, although this goes against my principles in a big way.

In my opinion anyone that rates Hock as a talent over Locky is firstly looking out for the eye catching play and secondly ignoring the massive weakness of player.

Hock were i the coach would be the first player out of the door were I coach at this stage in time. Going forward can be good, but generally has poor ball retention, makes poor decisions and is a lazy defender.

The lad is basically a coach killer, crowd favorite for an occasional cameo apperance, but very little substance to him.

You miss the point. I said if we had the above his captaincy wouldn't be in question. I wasn't arguing that he's the man to give us this.

I pretty much agree with this and have argued it in the past, he has the ability to look amazing but in my opinion he has lost us more games than he has won. Lack of composure is one of our biggest problems and Hock is one of the worst at keeping his. In a winning team Hock would get a place in the side every week but I feel he is a luxury we cannot afford at the moment.