Atm, it's definitely Jeffries. They're not setting the world alight, but our 6 & 7 are actually linking up!

Some really good signs in that performance starting with the defence, and the Pies made the most of Raynor off so with a full complement even the outwide defence should be much much better. For me the highlight was Roystons try, one for the Fantasy Footballers. Platt, (who should have been dumped by Bradford years ago) went on a run got tackled but released so he gets going again for another 10 metres. Briggs, (who is under 20's/championship level standard only) puts in a beautiful kick and Royston, (who is only championship material and will never make a SL player) runs in, TRY!

If thats what the rules say then Raynor should be off. The commentators made a lot about if you go for the head of a player as he is scoring a try it is an automatic red card. I seem to remember Elima (a move or so after a head high tackle on him) being given a right hander to the face when he was lying on the floor with the ball down. so that should have been a red card. One rule for the bulls, another for the rest...

The other improvement was the attacking play seems to be coming together a lot better, Jeffries and Briggs got a lot more going and there seemed to be real intent to take it to Wigan. Its not going to be quite so easy for Mick as players come back to just slot them in, hopefully there will be three half backs fighting for the two places instead of one fighting for two as weve had for many weeks. So on to Salford and moving up SL to the playoffs

Very occasionally you're right.

I'm in two minds about it. Jeffries has played well which certainly puts him in the box seat but I keep wondering if Herbert would also have shown up well behind a strong pack today.

I think its unfair to judge Herbert on performances when we've been getting destroyed up front. He's shown some skills and if he comes good with the kicking duties sitting with Briggs then potentially we have a longer term partnership than Jeffries/Briggs given his age. But then BJ HAS been playing well... nice to have this problem though!

Anybody how much deeper the attack was as opposed to usual today?

Yup and much more movement going on. Everybody seemed to be working hard to provide an option. Only once when Kopczak went through did I think support was lacking. Much better passing but still alot of dropped ball. We let Wigan off the hook plenty of times in the first half with silly errors.

Its only one game and I'm trying not to get too excited about it but it was such a big improvement it does through up the question of why today and not last week or the week before etc, etc? Can't just be Langers!

Just a bit! It was like someone had got hold of a copy of "Rugby League for Dummies" and passed it, and the DVDs of recent games, round the squad - or maybe the coaching staff? - during the week.

DILLIGAF and those Lockyear videos???

They got to one in 2001 but it was two years before they could face going through the trauma of another one.

Right hand side attack with Jeffries & Platt looked great today. WIgan did seem to concentrate on that side in attack though.

agree with a lot of points raised in previous posts. easily best performance since season opener at cardiff. We've finally remembered how to defend and played as a team instead of a group of individuals. briggs really added something in terms of his kicking game.

one thing that stands out reading this thread is what poor winners some wigan fans are.

Its probably because, dispite all the attempts at distraction with the Raynor sending off threads, they know that they scored less points against us than Halifax and that even with us down to 12 men for 50 mins. None of the Wigan players looked that happy in the interviews either.