07 and o8 there was nothing really between the Leeds and Saints teams just saints won the wrong games not the final

'05 was the killer year for me. We topped the league with a great side but ended up in the play-offs with Wilkin and a very young Scott Moore in the halves after losing the likes of Long, Sculthorpe, Hooper and Darren Albert to injury at the wrong time. Even then we lost an incredibly close elimination final to the eventual winners the Bulls (and Jamie Lyon almost dragged us back into the Leeds semi single handed but no cigar).

That Saints side finished top of the league four years running with only one GF win to show for it - more than a bit painful; very similar to 2018 in many respects. And possibly 2019 god forbid.

Well said.

Massive pressure now on the Saints to win the GF
Winning the SL regular season by such a wide margin is impressive but it doesn't guarantee you will smoke the winners cigar on GF day

Sides currently well below them in the league table will be rubbing their hands together once the knock out footy starts as they know that this Saints side isn't as invincible as their league position indicates

I called Wigan winning the grand final a while back now. Saints can’t do finals.

They must be worried at the moment. To lose two grand finals in a row after being so dominant must be a daunting prospect

As I said the other day. They are far from world beaters.

They didn't even make the one last year. They choked in the home semi (to Warrington, who else).

I look back to that night at Knowsley Road in the playoffs in September 2007, when we lost.

At that point in time Saints were the dominant team, they had done a treble the previous year, had just won the Challenge Cup yet again and had an enviable record in finals, having won 6 of 7 SL era Challenge Cup finals and all 4 Grand Finals they'd appeared in.

We lost that qualifier but it was brutal and we knew we could beat them if we got to the final, which we did. They were rightly the favourites again but we absolutely destroyed them. And from then on, year after year, we kept on beating them when it mattered so that it became embarrassing. And now, even when they have another great team, so strong is the legacy of and culture of losing big games that's been passed on from playing group to playing group that they just can't snap out of it.

I'm not saying I feel bad about this but I do think it's another legacy of that great Leeds team.

It all makes the run in to the GF very interesting can Saints shed the Bottler tag and Wire know winning the CC doesnt exorcise the " our year curse"

At the end of that 07 semi Saints looked beaten their body language showed it in the final too

I'm not sure about that but there is a huge issue in big games for the Saints club. They would likely have lost the semi were it against any SL club with how they played and the one final they did scrape over the line this decade in 2014 it was mainly down the early send off.

After that i just can't back Saints for the GF despite their huge superiority in regular rounds.

Yep. I just haven’t seen a game from Saints in the past 10 years that looks like a grand final winning performance.
I used to say the same about Warrington until Saturday.
Wigan show the kind of traits needed for a grand final win regularly.

It sets up all intriguing play if series. New format (old format), and I think genuinely 4 teams who could take the title

Yes. Hull have been decent on the big stage in recent times and we all know about Wigans pedigree and with Warrington's display at Wembley on saturday a replication of that at OT would go close to getting it done. Very much looking forward to it.