First of all, Wigan were excellent in defence today and completely covered anything we had to throw at them. Our attack was also poor which probably exaggerated that. We had very little in terms of dummy runners in our set plays which meant Wigan's defence could happily drift across and snuff out any threat on the edges. On the flip side when Wigan attacked their second row's ran some great lines which allowed space for Finch and Tomkins to exploit around our centre channels and for me that was the difference today.

I don't think we are too far off Wigan personally. They're structure in defence and attack is superior to ours and that's what makes them such a consistent and efficient outfit, credit to their coaching staff for that. I'm hoping that with the introduction of Nathan Brown next year he will start bringing some of the organisation and structure that Maguire has left with Wigan and Wane is carrying on. I think we have the players and the ability to beat Wigan, but without direction and purpose it will always be an uphill struggle. Wigan's aggressiveness was also a big factor in the game, their line speed was far superior in defence and made it very hard for us to create any momentum after the first 15 minutes. Although, big bad Gareth Hock backed up about 10m when Soliola got in his face.

With regards to Saints I thought so players played very well and some had shockers. Makinson had a great game today, completely solid in defence and showed some great flashes in attack when returning kicks and working out of our own half. He made about 4 or 5 very good runs, the pick of the bunch his 70m scoot. Gary Wheeler had a very good game defensively and did well to stop a few Wigan threats but didn't go well at all in attack, made quite a few errors in key positions and took the wrong option a couple of times. Wellens put in his usual 100% effort but in general was fairly ineffective, a combination of his lack of foot speed and Wigan's drifting defence meant he posed no threat at all when on their goal line.

As for the not so good players, I've reserved judgement for a while on two in particular to give them a chance but today amplified their short comings. Lance Hohaia and Michael Shenton bring absolutely nothing to the table and were completely and utterly average today. Lance seems content in shipping the ball on and not taking on the line, it's a real shame because when he does he looks dangerous. His kicking game is also poor and constantly gave Wigan the front foot on returns, perhaps time to give Gaskell another go? Shenton sadly is going downhill, it's no wonder Makinson isn't a prolific try scorer, Shenton can't seem either beat a man or pass the ball. He constantly got taken with the ball in attack and he was poor defensively, Josh Jones brings more to the team than Shenton does.

All in all it was a disappointing day, we had the territory and possession to win but wasn't clinical enough to break down Wigan's well structured and organised defence. We need to bite the bullet and realise that some of the players aren't contributing what they should and we would be better off with younger, more enthusiastic players in the side. If Nathan Brown can bring some direction to the side and swap a couple of players around we will be challenging once again, unfortunately I can't see the current crop having enough about them to win any silverware this season.

Some weak leaks in the Saints side and a few players who did not put in a first class performance, but lets consider the way the team may be being coached at present, the team did lack ideas at times.

its fantastic how alot of saints fans allways say wigan just have better structures than saints and thats the reason we win not because AT THE MOMENT we have the better team. to be honest i dont think we got out of first gear for the whole match.

This season's been pretty much doomed since the players conspired to get rid of the coach a quarter of the way through - even with a creative halfback we'd be struggling a bit in this kind of game under the circumstances. Wigan were absolutely awful and lined up in rows for the taking today and we still couldn't execute a gameplan to take them. Shocking on all levels.

A lot of Saints fans say that BECAUSE IT'S TRUE strangely enough. Get back in your box.

Do you know anything about coaching? Executing good structures goes a long way to winning a game the rest is made up from individual flair and the bounce of the ball. If Warrington had your structures they'd be top, if we had your structures we'd probably be top. The same can be said about Leeds. Wigan are a fantastically coached side and it shows, I'm not knocking Wigan at all, but a large reason to your success is your structures.

From a neutral point of view, your weak link on offence today was Wellens. We have Patten (whose been our best attacking full back in a long time) However his skill generates a lot of tries not only for himself but his team mates, when the ball reached Wellens he seemed to slow the momentum of your attack as easy to predict! as for your defense, what probably influenced the outcome of the game were Lomax's decision in defense, constantly coming out the tackle to close Tomkins down, off the top of my head I can only think of one time Lomax came and completed a tackles on ST. Excuse my ignorance but where is Gaskel is he injured or not being selected?

You wouldn't have thought it was a Wigan v saints derby the way our players played. No fire and to soft.

Wigan didn't get out off 3rd gear today and didn't need to. They totally ripped us apart outwide again when they moved it wide.

Our attack was shocking, predictable, slow and one up boring rugby.

You have too many average players for me, some good ones, and others with potential, but you won't win anything until you ship out the likes of hohia, laffranchi, perry, meli, shenton, welllens.

I think Wigan are just a better side because simply they have better players. There's always been a lot of talk on these forums about picking joint 17's and comparing how many Saints players would get in to how many of Wigans.

At this moment in time you'd be struggling to fit more then 4 or 5 Saints lads in, certainly the full first choice Wigan backline would get in from 1-7.

Nathan Browns off season recruitment will be important.

apart from roby not another one of your players would get into are sqaud so you dont

1. tomkins 1. wellens. not even close
2. charnley 2. makinson. close but this season shows charnley
3. goulding 3. wheeler didn't really trouble hughes and he is a 2nd row player
4. carmont 4. shenton not even close
5. richards 5. meli not even close
6. finch 6. lance not even close
7. tommy 7. lomax in a few years maybe but for now NO!
8. mossop 8. perry not even close
9. micky 9. roby micky has got the better of roby on more than one occasion but roby is more established
10. prescott 10. lafranchi it is close but i still stick with prescott
11. hansen 11. afro top hansen by far the most under rated 2nd row in superleague hes fantastic.
12. hock 12. TP wouldn't swap him for any 2nd row in the world.
13. o'loughlin 13. wilkin not even close

I genuinly believe that only 1 Saints player, in Roby, would make the Wigan 17. Even then I would only have Roby on the bench and would have McIlorum starting.

Of course it is. However our backline is 3 times better than yours and our pack is 2 times better than yours. We didn't even turn up and we mullered you.

Now you've just embarrassed yourself!

I thought today that Wigan were solid in defence but on the whole pretty ordinary, and there for the taking by a genuine top class team.

Sadly Saints look at present like a side for whom its about finishing in the top 8 rather than top 3

We are desperately short of strike power in the three quarters, and despite the fact that Wello was in many respects one of our better players, i do think that at times such as today he is as much a hindrance to our attacking structure than anything else due to slowing down the entire move.

I regard Wigan as the best Wrestling team in the league. They slow teams down better than anyone. Tie that in with our game plan which involves running off Robys scoots, and we are going to come up short against Wigan time and time again. This will happen until we have the players to enable us to adopt a different more fluid style of attack involving the three quarters.
Other teams like Warrington, Huddersfield, Leeds and Catalan have far more balanced attack and can therefore cause Wigan all sorts of problems that Saints cant.
These other sides, with the possible exception of Huddersfield dont handle the wrestle situation anything like as well as Wigan as such we are capable of defeating them through our scoot and go gameplan.

For me we are only a couple of players and a good coach short of being a top class site.
The players we need are fast dangerous threequarters.