You only enjoyed it because an expansion team won. The game itself was physical & tough, bit like a 3rd rate NRL game. Hopefully the GRAND FINAL won't be as bad, and thank **** Catalans won't be there, with their 2900 fans !

I assume you didn't go in 2016 then? That was a much better final in terms of quality. Less points than Saturday but a game played to a much higher standard.

Honestly can't recall if I went or not. Most finals in recent years have been forgettable.

I agree with Wanderer, despite both being defeats for Warrington the 2016 game was a better showing by both teams I actually thought we deserved the win that day not so this time so that may be clouding my judgement, but a tense hard fought game.

I agree with you that a try fest doesn't always add p to a good game of RL but it's difficult to rely upon your opinion if you can't remember if you were at Wembley two years ago

Well i was at Wembley 2 years ago and remember feeling very upset we lost that game. We'd played well and it was a great game for the neutrals. It took me few days to get over it.
On Saturday i felt frustrated and angry at the team for the rubbish being dished up. No one looked bothered and ran round like headless chickens. I didn't neex any time to get over it as i could tell after 50 mins it wasn't our day. Not sure we had a plan A never mind a Plan B. Catalan absolutely deserved that win.
I really thought reviewing the semi against Saints would have helped in our preparation but god knows what game the team did look at?

It was very much the same when we played Catalans in the semi final, no Plan A or Plan B, but you must credit the Catalans for that. During the cup run they seemed to have a very good tactic in drawing the opposition into a down the middle type of game where the Catalan forwards are strongest, at every play the ball they had 3 players either side to stop the ball going to the edges.

Warrington did manage a 10 min spell in the first half going wide but errors by way of execution and composure let them down, they also had the last 10 mins of the game were the Catalans were hanging on and Warrington were still coming up with panic play.

For Catalans Drinkwater and HaHa were below par but Warrington struggled with Roberts, Brown, Ratchford and Clark which at 1, 6, 7 and 9 are your main pivots and 9 times out of 10 will win you the game.

Catalans pack was smaller than Wires but dominated them. Only Westwood showed up and he dropped the ball to throw away a try. Chris Hill got overpowered. Warrington had too little go forward to allow their backs to perform. They were given no time or space until the spell were Catalans tired. Catalans executed their plan superbly. The French players in particular had much more desire in their eyes than the Warrington team. To me that made for a great game and incidentally the reaction such as an heard from non-RL supporters and even the press that doesn't often report the game all seemed to recognise that and thought it was a great game. RL fans these days seem to have lost the feel for the game and just want to moan come what may. We should be celebrating a great match. Incidentally, I probably did go to 2016 as I think that was the year after coming out of the bar near the tube station I realised I'd left the tickets in the car and had to dash back to Stanmore to get them and arrived last second. Only memorable part of the day.

By the way Catalans are not an expansion team they are a contraction team.

Not saying other recent finals have been quality so a nothing point really. Doesn’t need to be lots of tries to make a quality game. You’ve really come up with one area of one teams performance to say the game was great, nothing on Warrington. One team defending well isn’t enough on its own to make a game great and their defence wasn’t even as good as made out. They had 26 missed tackles by HT, god knows what it was at FT but will have been way too high for the praise it’s getting. They were let off by poor opposition. Roberts make a break downfield in the first half on the first tackle instead of holding on against a scattered defence he tries a wonder ball and it’s ruled forward. Gigot failed with a high ball and Warrington think it’s a free play and mess it up. Both of those are a combination of Catalans failures and Warrington messing up in capitalising. Wire should have scored through Lineham but a Warrington runner makes a sloppy error of running to the outside shoulder instead of inside shoulder of the defender, harsh rule but one that professionals should know not to do. Lineham trying slide over from 6/7m our first tackle again sloppy when he should e cut back inside. Westwood could’ve scored but again poor execution of the pass. Numerous last tackle plays where the ball was thrown behind Brown or around his head costing him time to get a better kick away when near Catalans line.

For all the talk of Catalans defence being good, any team whose composure was higher than Warrington’s which was about a 1 out of 10 would’ve won. If Catalans defence was so good why did Warrington have so many chances, more so than them. Especially considering completion rates which should’ve seen Catalans boss the 2nd half as they held onto the ball which resulted in Warrington having to do more defending equalling more fatigue and starting sets in poorer positions

Congratulations to Catalan for their victory on Saturday, thoroughly deserved and what a great turnaround by McNamara and the side .It's difficult to believe that they are the same side that lost 8 from 9 games at the start of the season.

As a neutral, ti was an excellent game of RL, with Catalan dominating the early exchanges and Wire coming back strongly at the end and it looked for a while that we may have a draw, with Wire finishing strongly (apart from a bit of composure when it really mattered).
Gigot was superb but, I would have given Mcillorum the mom, he was superb.

The attendance overall was very poor for a showpiece event but, given the short time frame between the semi's and the final and with Catalan never likely to bring 10/15000 fans, this was always going to be the case.

I think it's time to accept that the Cup Final is no longer the major showpiece event that it once was and find a new strategy fo filing the ground, either by working with ALL clubs to sell more tickets in advance or possibly moving the date of the final, although this is no guarantee of changing the numbers attending the final.

Apart from having a new name on the trophy, which is always a good thing, the increased media exposure of having Les Cats winning has been excellent, something that we haven't seen for a number of years and it makes a change to be getting positive exposure for the sport form some quarters, where RL is usually sneered upon.

Great game and well done Catalan.

By the way. Apparently now the RFL ensured that Catalans won. Seriously, if you want a laugh, join the barmy army Warrington page on face book. It’s hilarious

Regards

King James

OR for a more balanced view, folk might want to look at this thread and visit our own board on here? Most saying that we had chances at the end to pinch an undeserving win and that the opposition played better than we did, but, yes get on facebook and knock yourself out.

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram comments sections are where the dullards of society dwell. The fact two people in this thread have given importance to Wire fans on Facebook comments sections says more about the two posters than it does the wider Warrington support.

Bit late to the party, but I thought it was a great game - very enjoyable for the neutral, and a fantastic story that Catalans lifted the Cup; full credit to the coach for picking up a chaotic, ragtag bunch off ill-disciplined eejits and transforming not just their play, but their attitude - which is much more difficult.

It looked to me that Catalans plan was to compress Wire, stop them getting it wide, and ram it down the middle - and their forwards did a brilliant job of executing that; made Drinkwater and a few others redundant for large parts of the game, but it was very effective - and Tony Gigot was majestic - he's an outstanding player.

Lovely stuff - attendance aside, but one would hope and expect that in having a team from overseas involved in the comp, the RFL would have planned for the reality that they simply won't bring as many fans, no matter what initiatives and marketing expertise the gobes of RLFans bring to bear.

I resemble that remark...