One could argue that Wigan actually saved us the embarrassment of being beaten by their reserves.

To my mind Wigan's 5 most important players are Tomkins, Leuluai, Finch, O'Loughlin & Richards. They chose to rest 4 of those which seems a bit over the top.

Can understand the policy of resting the odd player occasionally to try and keep your squad fresh but 4 all at once is asking for trouble - and it reaped its reward.

That said, with the number of players Widnes were missing through necessity Wane would have reasonably expected to still win the game.

It would have been nice if Tomkins and Richards hadn't played against us seeing as they did most of the damage, but the way we played that day their stand ins would probably have carved us up almost as much........

The decision to rest a few players clearly backfired but talk of it being bad for the game seems wide of the mark to me. Wigan gave a few more youngsters a chance which most see as a good thing and the result also went some way to showing that you do actually have to turn up every week and can't just expect to win which is good for the competition.

I'd like to think that both Cas and Wakefield will win more than enough games by the end of the season to not be worrying about 2 of the points Widnes got to have come against a weekened opposition.

So would I. However Widnes are a new team, hit by injuries and with the bit of quality/experience indicative of the potential to get better. Apart from the admittedly major factor of IMs absence can we find enough reasons to suggest we will improve more or quicker than the Vikings?