Only read the first page of the thread so it may have been mentioned already but re. Wigan being 'lucky' with injuries, has it occured to you that perhaps we are the fittest and best conditioned side in SL?

It's no secret how hard a pre-season the Wigan lads have gone through for the past few years, or how highly rated our fitness staff are.

I find it amazing the number of injuries other teams (including and indeed especially Saints) get that aren't necessarily the result of a contact sport, but more of players not being in good enough condition to participate at the highest level. Muscle and ligament injuries are a prime example.

I was just shocked that he did that. I thought Wello had a very poor game yesterday given that he had a very good game last week. I was disappointed in him.

I think some of shouting and frustration he was taking out on the ref was brought on by his own performance.

I agree with that and providing he continues to score super tries; madge and co can always work on his defence which is pretty poor as you say especially in combination with a centre who isn't a centre.

cant remember Rads ever looking so poor, even when he came back and played for free, a year out of the game, 2 dodgy knees, still didnt look as poor as Wello on Saturday.

sad to see.

Without any doubt, was a fantastic game, our defense was the difference, against another side Saints would have won easily.

Our defence was outstanding (again) and that was the difference between two great sides.

Just sorry it can't be us both having a great day out at Wembley.

Well done to our lads, and well played Saints.

I haven't read all the pages, but this is my take.
Our high completion rate in such a high pressure game was impressive. So was our ability to force repeat sets.
The reason we couldn't score was partly due to facing a good defense, but it was also that we seem to be creeping down the road of always taking the same option in attack, which is a problem compounded by the fact that option means the ball is dying in Wello's hands. I'm not saying we'd have had a hat full, but I reckon we may have maganed 1 or 2 extra tries if Eastmond was attacking in that position.

The other thing is that we seem to play a bit better when the pressure's off. LMS had a good game all round, but once we were 18 points down, twice he banged the ball up with extra venom and put a guy on their . Soliola did the same. We then went on to score two good free flowing tries.

Wigan are a better team. Not 17 better players. They have a better defence and when they move the ball wide in attack, they have a variety of options to take which they utilise so that each runner is a valid option.

Our season had a mixed start. Royce had a number of problems including family issues and Eastmondgate. I'd sugest we're 6 weeks behind where Royce would realistically like us to be and that if things had been a little different we could be looking at a team performing 5% better and maybe sneaking a win in situaions like Saturday.
Defence remains a bit of a question mark, but I think Silverware is a perfectly feasible possibilty under Simmons.

50 tackles with no misses? He was one of the hardest working player on the pitch.

He also forced several repeat sets with his short kicking game whilst the kicking game of all around him was falling apart.

Anonymous? Utter poppycock.

Well he certainly put in a great defensive effort that I can't fault. But offensivly with ball in hand I personally thought he was non exisistant. No little half-breaks or tackles bust. It's no wonder Saints struggled to score points when one of their supposed greatest attacking weapons did bugger all when taking on the Wigan line. Sorry I fogot he put in two grubber kicks to force repeat sets, get that man a medal!




I actually though your kicking game was better than ours. You did at least on occasions find the ground, something we struggled to find all match. Granted you put in some shocking bombs mainly from Leon, but then again he never has had a great kicking game, so what else would one expect from him.



To be honest I'm only jostling with you buddy. I hope that comes across in my posts. I do after all when ever mentioning Wilkin usually use the winking smilie. Not that it exonerates me from criticism because of my feelings on him.

I know Wilkins a good player. I did afterall agree with you that I think he's having a better season overall than Lockers.

Slightly OT: But as I mentioned on the Wigan forum in regards to Sam Tomkins. So many so called "great" players do go missing in one way or another in big games. It's ok showing all the flair in the world whilst putting fifty past the likes of Wakey. But it's those truly great players who are able to replicate that kind of performance even in the toughest games regardless of the opposition. It's that kind of mentality, that type of quality that really sets apart the so called "great" players from the truly great ones IMO. You lacked on Saturday the game breaking ability that a Long or Sculthorpe once provided you with. Scully never shirked when the going got tough, if anything he rose to the occasion. That's what your lacking IMO.

No question - Tomkins is a phenomenon and does it time and again whet it matters.

Absolutely brilliant player.

if he had a inspiring 4 nations campaign, i wonder if the boos would still ring out?