https://www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby- ... ke-2539395 I thought at the time that these were pretty pathetic comments from Phil Clarke. By all means, if he didn't feel Wane was right for the job, he should have said so, but he should then have explained why in a coherent way. Simply to dismiss Wane's many trophy wins as being down to Wigan's spending power was totally inadequate and not even vaguely accurate. This was the salary cap era, and most of the top clubs spent up to it. If you're going to blithely dismiss the head coach's contribution to several very successful sports campaigns, and not look a total dispstick afterwards, you need to do far, far better than that. Clarke seems to be following in Stevo's shoes as trying to be Mr Controversial. In that regard, I suppose he's succeeding, but having enjoyed him as a player, as a pundit he's a lesser man to me every time he opens his yap.

https://www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby- ... ke-2539395 I thought at the time that these were pretty pathetic comments from Phil Clarke. By all means, if he didn't feel Wane was right for the job, he should have said so, but he should then have explained why in a coherent way. Simply to dismiss Wane's many trophy wins as being down to Wigan's spending power was totally inadequate and not even vaguely accurate. This was the salary cap era, and most of the top clubs spent up to it. If you're going to blithely dismiss the head coach's contribution to several very successful sports campaigns, and not look a total dispstick afterwards, you need to do far, far better than that. Clarke seems to be following in Stevo's shoes as trying to be Mr Controversial. In that regard, I suppose he's succeeding, but having enjoyed him as a player, as a pundit he's a lesser man to me every time he opens his yap.

Clarke always manages this weird crossover of trying to sound intellectual, whilst coming across as being as thick as a barn door. The roll neck jumpers, the thick rimmed glasses and his put on accent don’t disguise the fact that a lot of what he comes out with is just ‘noise’.

I listened to the Sky podcast with him and Carney discussing player welfare if they’re asked to play 3 games a week and he just went round in circles and never actually came out with what he was attempting to say. He found time to let us know how clever he is by explaining the Romans had an 8 day week and during the French Revolution there was a ten day week but he never cut to the chase and that was that he was thinking the players welfare would be best served by playing 3 games a week, if the alternative was for the game to go bust and the players play zero (and get paid for zero).

Had he come out with that totally relevant point, rather than blabbering on trying to sound the brains of Wigan, he’d have backed Carney in to a corner.

As for his comments about Wane, they strike me as being clouded by jealousy and that probably comes back to the fact that he thinks he’s a cut above the likes of Wane on an intellectual level.

They don't get on. Simples.

Saying Wane's success was a direct benefit of Maguire just isn't true. Yes he will have picked up some tips from Maguire.
But we've had such a crazy turnaround of players that within 18 months of Maguire leaving the team looked massively different. Added to the fact that all of the top local talent that played for us at that time (S. Tomkins, J.Tomkins, McIlorum, Mossop, Charnley, Goulding, Prescott and more than I'm forgetting) will have come through the youth ranks coached by Shaun.
Then you start to look at the sheer number of players he brought through to become established Wigan first team players from the youth teams is incredible.

Which, if true, indicates a jaw-dropping lack of professionalism on Clarke's part.

But then, to be fair, he's only following where others have gone before.

Eddie Hemmings actually took time off from his commentary once to say how disgusted he was that he hadn't been invited to Andy Farrell's testimonial golf tournament. The word t##t doesn't even come close.

What’s the origin of their beef? Maybe some comments from Sky or something more sinister? I know Clarke is disliked by a lot due to his involvement in his “brothers business” which has a history of flogging players to Rugby Union purely for cash.

Dead right, this. A few seasons ago he obviously made a concerted effort to be the Sky team's resident 'stats' expert. Clearly well out of his depth. He is semi-articulate and played the game to a high level, if he kept things simple and played to his strengths like John Wells he could be a perfectly good broadcaster.

As for his comments on Wane, genuinely shocked. The sort of guff you'd expect a fan of a different club with an axe to grind to say, not a professional. Law of averages is that you'll find a number of players and coaches around who don't like Waney, but I doubt you'll find a single professional who would say his success is down to luck.

You could (and some have) say exactly the same about John Monie - he inherited a great team, he had all the money to spend. I remember a great article once on Monie where the writer said "people say anybody could have done it. Anybody didn't do it. John Monie did." Same applies here. Similarly, you could say the same about Paisley following Shankly at Liverpool. Fagan following Paisely, Dalglish following Fagan. Problem is, by that logic anyone that comes into a big successful club should logically be equally successful and, as we know, that's not always the case. Yes, Michael Maguire did have a great effect on the club and Wane reaped the benefits of that (let's not forget he was part of the coaching set-up then as well) but after that he maintained success for seven seasons. It's clearly obvious that he is a terrific coach and if Clarke can't see that then he's an idiot.

The key to managing a side like that is man management. Monie had it. Dorahey for example, didn't.