Nope. I watched exactly the same game as you.

You might be crapping yourself, but even the Wigan fans on their site are talking about 'improvement needed' from their performance against Salford. It was decent but hardly terrified me.

I don’t think the pack has enough go forward in it to beat Saints in a knock out game sadly. We can defend and defend and defend but there’s doing it against Salford and then doing it against Saints and with all due respect to Salford (who were great on Saturday), it’s going to ramp up a few notches on Friday. If we get pinned in our own half for the spells we did against Salford then Saints will put plenty more then 12 points on us.

Our kicking game will need to improve ten fold. It was as bad as I’ve seen in a play off game on Friday and we’ve probably lost Powell now and he’s been doing a lot of our kicking recently.

I don't do hyperbole, I take a more balanced view.

Wigan are not easy beats and saints are not invincible. As I said the test for saints will be how we react if it does not all go our way. Recent experience tends to suggest we like a way to keep it tight.

Since 1998 when the playoffs started has any team that finished top not made the final at 1st attempt?

Leeds in 2004 springs to mind immediately for me.
Warrington didn’t make it at all in 2011

Ok thanks I wasn't sure

Saints finished top and didn't make the final at all, I think it was 2005

Thanks to 10 minutes of mayhem and thuggery from terry newton taking out darren albert, lee gilmour and sean long with season ending facial injuries

wigan 2012 too.

Huddersfield 2013? Lost both I think

On the flip side, wasnt there one season where Bradford languished around 10th/11th all season then found a bit of form and scraped 5th on the last day and went on to win the Grand Final?

Under the current format, the only team finishing 1st not to make it at the first attempt was Wigan in 2000. They then got to the Grand FInal on their second chance but lost to St Helens.

last year

*Bump*