Reserves Grand Final

Just returned from the DW, a ground that sounds more like a chain of iron mongers than the home ground of a premiership football team.

I arrived in the ground just as the two teams took to the field. It was clear then that there was a large difference in size between the respective sides.
Most notably in the form of Karl Pryce.

Right from the off Wigan were on top, scoring after little over 5 minutes.
Saints then spent most of the half repelling wave after wave of Wigan forwards who smashed through the Saints middle with ease. Conversly Saints forwards struggled to make any sort of yardage, and by half time had only managed to get in the Wigan half on 3 occasions. Once following a wonderfull step and go from Wheeler, secondly from a 40/20 from Wheeler, and thirdly following a Wigan knock on just inside Saints half which allowed us to get near the wigan sticks. Only then for Saints to look somewhat clueless near the Wigan line.

Wigan on the other hand with a dominant pack giving the brilliant Joe Mellor room to do what he wanted were taking the mickey. Mellor himself scored an absolutely fantastic try in which is weaved, stepped dummied and outpaced what looked like half the Saints side, before going under the sticks. When this is combined with the astute kicking and organising game which he displayed' one has to say that Wigan fans should be getting very excited.
I think a Mellor, Tomkins half back combination come 2012 is one that will rip SL teams to shreds.

By half time it was 22-0 and the expectation was that Saints were in all probability going to collapse in the 2nd half and suffer an ignominious 50+ thrashing.

This belief was given further support early in the 2nd half when Jamie Foster was sin binned for lying on after Wigan had gone 60 yards in a brlliant flowing move. Strangely though rather than collapse, Saints dug deep and came up with some excellent last ditch defence. We even managed to get to the half way line. Infact the score remained 22-0 for a sustained period until Kurt Haggerty managed to barge is way over from 10 yards out, a try which left him injured and forced to leave the pitch.

The embarrassment of conceeding a try seemed to stir wigan from what now appeared to have been a coma brought on by boredom due to dominating Saints so easily. As a result Wigan started to run riot with 10 minutes to go and proptly increased the score from 22-6 to 34-6. During this period they were very unlucky not to bag a few more.

The match finished 34-6 with much to think about from both sides.

For Wigan there was the brilliant performance of their young reserves side. Its been shown over the last 18 months to be dominant over all other sides. Only Saints have come close, giving them their only defeat in the last year.
They have some outstanding young forwards coming through, with size mobility and good hands.
Joe Mellor at half back is really fast and agile. He is slightly built like Tomkins but looks a lot faster.
On the flip side of the coin is the complete wast of a shirt that is Karl Pryce. The man looks and plays like one would expect of a real life Herman Munster. He does a disservice to the word garbage. Never since Vila Matautia set foot on a RL pitch have i seen someone so lazy.
The sooner Wigan ditch this embarrassment the better.

From Saints one may be tempted to be overly disheartened. However one has to remember that Saints have shown themselves to be the pies nearest rivals.
Against all other opposition our youngsters have performed admirably.
Gary Wheeler showed touches of class today, but sadly again went of injured.
Emmitt despite being bashed left right and centre never took a backward step, and showed himself to be a real tough cookie.
Of concern would be the poor performance of Frodsham. Granted he has only recently returned from a serious injury, but today he looked a shadow of his former self. He will need to work hard to get back to being in contention for a 1st team squad place.
Lomax was irrepressable tackling and taking the ball forward, but his passing from dummy half at times was poor, and he also looked lacking in pace compared to the Wigan lads, when given space to run in.
The young backrowers Dixon and Ashurst failed to match their Wigan opposites and were on the whole dissapointing.