I thought Manu was by far our best player.

I thought we had Wire on the back foot at the point of getting that penalty, their defence was creaking and that's why we went for the 6. I agreed with the decision at the time, but then I always think we should throw caution to the wind and go for the 6 points in that position .

It's less conservative, but it's more exciting

Nah he wasn't. Briers was.

The answer to that is quite simple: we don't have a single rugby brain in our team.

For 10 solid minutes in the second half, both sides just kicked the ball dead each time, we used to call Union borning for doing that? The last Warrington try was just inexperience.

This is what Hodgson does so brilliantly for Wire and Ratchford is only just learning (last night was clearly his best effort all season) - it's not just about catching the ball and dancing about like a chicken in a Biafran village (a certain Wigan player, take note!) ..... If the fullback holds his deep position and resists the temptation to join every attack, he has the best view of where the opposition are loaded or short; a few sharp shouts to those in the playline and you can block the gaps or exploit the space to your best advantage. I think this is what's stopping Lomax from being a decent fullback right now - his direction of the players/game in front of him.

I think all players has different strengths. Lomax usually marshalls the defensive line well and chimes in the attacking line well. We have to remember what Ratchford has around him compared to Lomax. So it maybe something Lomax shows off more, with a decent half infront of him.

I thought apart from the first 25 minutes we were pretty decent. It was just that start when Warrington came out really fast and we could not live with their speed of movement and passing and kicking.

I thought Saints game upped its level once Howarth went off the pitch. Howarth was again very poor, his passing from dummy half is not only slow its inaccurate, pass after pass went either above or behind players, and I think this contributed to our spilled ball, as it allowed wire the time to spot our players and nail them big time.
Lance also offered us a running threat from dummy half which forced Wires markers to watch the dummy half area more closely. This frees up space elsewhere. When Howarth plays hooker you can pretty much ignore the dummy half area and defend wider.

Lance will no doubt come in for a lot of stick , but I personally thought he contributed quite a bit for us in the positive sense. In part I think he is being hampered by being a runner/support player in a team lacking a top class organiser.
This theory will obviously be put to the test next season with him playing alongside a known organising halfback in Walsh, with Wilkin offering a second option as playmaker/kicker

My MOM for Saints was Swift. He was forever carting the ball up regardless of tackle and invariably made metres with every carry. I also noticed a couple of times him and Makinson being used together in some cute interplays which on another day could have opened up space for some long range try action.

Lomax for me took his form from the wakefield match to this game. He did some great stuff going forward but showed lack of experience in marshalling defence to handle kicks.

On the subject of kicks it was notable that Wire were only capable of breeching our try line via kicks. That in a way shows that we have the makings of a good defensive structure that is hard to break down by passing methods. We however have work to do on being able to read kick plays. This is something Lomax needs to develop.

I was screaming for us to take the 2 points with 10 minutes left as that would mean we could win it with just one try. To score two tries in ten mins is a really big ask. I thought also that by making it one try to win it this would have mentally affected wire as they would have started to panic a bit. It also would mean we could win it with just 1 second on the clock. Whereas to score two trys you really need 5 mins to stand any chance of winning.

remembered something else from last night which ive seen throughout the season from Saints which really winds me up as its poor practise from Saints.

Approximately 12 mins left 7 points down.
Saints get a scrum. Instead of forming it quick we just mull around. Lee Briers then spends a minute and a half chatting to the ref asking him what he had for tea and if he is excited about moving to the NRL next year. All the time the clock is ticking down.

If its our scrum and we are losing we should always rush to form it quickly. Don't give the opposition time to settle and get their breath back.

This is one of my Pet Hates, when we played our worst game in history against Widnes a few weeks ago we were losing by 4 points with 10 mins to go. We had a scrum and our players just wandered up and took about 45 seconds to pack down, this doesn't happen regularly at Warrington but in that game we did this about 3 times, which overall would have lost us about 3 minutes.

Inexperience? If you recorded the game go back to the penalty from Hohia and listen to briers. Prior to playing the ball. How inexperience in defence negates counts for creative play I don't know.
As for being boring are you sure you were watching the same game that I was stood on the terrace? I tell you what was boring 82 -10 that was boring.

Carvell's try want a Lomax mistake. Time was running down and he had to try to let it roll dead to have any chance of getting the ball back and winning the game.

As for the Higham try, the dreadful Howarth should have tidied up before it got to that point.

[quoteWe should have took the two points with aprox 10 mins to go with the pen under the posts. That would have made it 18-23 with a converted try winning the game. It would have also put massive pressure on the wolves.]

I agree with Howarth. We shouldn't have brought him back on. Lance was playing well at 9. He was causing them problems with the ball and also putting in a shift in defence. I thought we really had them, we was smashing them in defence, making breaks, the crowd was buzzing and brown took lance and Lms off and we went flat.'"

Wellens would have knocked it dead rather than give Carvell the opportunity to ground it, that's where the inexperience comes into it. Had there been another 10 minutes on the clock Lomax may well have done himself.

Lomax knew there was only 2 or 3 minutes on the clock and giving Wire a repeat set would pretty much give them the game.

It was the right thing to do, to gamble and try and let it run dead, had he cleared it himself they would have won anyway, just by one less try.