The gap between these 2 heavyweights and the rest of super league is just massive. Ian Watson was giving it large this week about how he wants his Huddersfield team to be the 3rd team in the mix. Come on. Hudds need to build an academy first, something that St Helen’s and Wigan are 30 years in front of everyone else with. Instead of signing players no one else wants, concentrate on grass roots as that’s the basis for St Helen’s and Wigans success.

We all want to see more more teams in the grand final mix but it’s not going to happen for years. Just don’t beat your chest to the press just because your club is the best of a very bad bunch

This shows had bad super league is. The supposed 3rd best team in super league get absolutely mullered by a team with 11 men.

This is why we need expansion, because the likes of Huddersfield and hull fc are just an embarrassment

The best attacking team and the best defensive team starting to show their metal now, whilst the other contenders are falling away.

French to score 7 try's is impressive no matter what team they are playing.

The like of you keep on harping on about expansion just where are you going to get these players from if the other rich clubs Huddersfield, Warrington, Hull fc and Leeds can't reach the same quality isn't that enough to get through that thick skull of yours.

Congratulations on the win that was impressive

A basis, not the basis and not remotely the most important.

Investment banking and software systems for workforce management are more relevant factors. My own club’s rise from the second tier to be one of the large group of SL whipping boys, on to which McManus and Lenegan can vent the full fury of their fortunes, has relied on personal injury and medical negligence claims.

Money wins. That’s just how it is. Enjoy your team’s success, but don’t think that means you have some special insight as to what underpins it, and stick your sporting moralising and bs blueprint for success up your booty. Please.

Saints performance last night was immense, no question.
Their forwards completely dominated all night and when they went a man down, that effort actually seemed to increase so, well played.

Wigan stuffing FC is a different kettle of fish though.

FC havent exactly been setting the world alight and when a side starts running hot, with the other side off their game, you see some blowout scores.
However, well played Wigan, you can only beat what is in front of you.

As for Huddersfield, they flatter to deceive but, seem to have a huge hangover from their cup final defeat and it's knocked their confidence big time.

Right now, it would be a brave man to bet against a Saints v Wigan GF but, Catalan could still have plenty to say and if Huddersfield sort themselves out, they could come good again.

As for expansion

Unless Wales fall out with RU or we allow a full side of Aussie and Kiwis, where on earth would the players come from to fill these expansion sides ?

Down the line, we may struggle to have enough youngsters coming through for the 12 or 10 SL clubs that currently make up the top flight.

Look more to develop promising players and youngsters. Most teams seemed to go for 1 or 2 big name (usually Aussies) signings rather than work on player development. There are examples of players currently playing Super League who came from the Championship and were patient, developed their game and broke through. Benefiting the clubs who were prepared to be patient with the development. I'm not suggesting it is the total answer. Don't really want to name names about individual clubs, but as Warrington fans themselves criticise the club policy of big money signings at the expense of development I'll use them as an example. It's not all about money, if it were Warrington would have won several Grand Finals.

It isn’t all about money… just mostly.

It is definitely more about money than it is patience. Even then, patience is a luxury only the rich clubs can afford. Even if it weren’t for relegation, what sort of message does it send to fans and players, young or otherwise, if we say we’re not going to worry much about winning for a few years at a club that already doesn’t win much? Jamie Peacock’s 5-year plan for Hull KR should be a cautionary tale for the whole of SL.

You know that saying about the devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world that he doesn’t exist? I sometimes wonder if Saints and Wigan fans aren’t just naively smug/smugly naive (apologies for the gross generalisation) but are smart enough to use the patience bs to bulwark their dominance, sending the dimwitted poor off down the wrong path. As in so much else in life! I’d kind of admire that.

Both St Helens and Wigan have a plethora of local youngsters in key positions who are outstanding talents. Players you can build a team around. That’s the blueprint for their success.

Some of these players weren’t even stars at academy level. It’s all about the coaching set up. If your club can’t produce the same standard they need to look at the coaches

No, it isn’t.

It isn’t all about any one thing. More than any other single thing, it is about money.

Look, I’m sort of sorry if this is a Santa-isn’t-real thing, but I feel at some point you sort of deserve the truth. And in fairness, you’re not going to get it from ex-players-turned-pundits who played most of their careers at rich clubs, or commentators whose livelihoods depend on pretending anything could happen this week or year and isn’t that exciting?

Right, I’m off to tell some Halifax and Swinton fans how their clubs should be run, with some implied blame that it is their own shortcomings and lack vision that has led to their clubs languishing in the lower divisions, and if they could just understand that East Hull has a better culture than the places they come from they could maybe start to emulate us and get into SL. Just like I wake up every day and wish I’d grown up in St Helens, and breathed the same rarefied air as… oh, ffs… all the players whose names would scan properly are from Widnes or Wigan, so it’ll have to be Jonny Lomax.

So that is patience and coaching set-up addressed. Any more nonsense, self-delusional silver bullets you’d me to smack into the bleachers for you?

Very much so, you don't need to rely on "money for success" its more what you can achieve and promote at Academy level and as you say what superleague see from the championship clubs. For the saints half the team are from the academy and didn't spend a lot of money getting Walmsley from Dewsbury and Batchelor from York those 2 are now international players.

Stabilty in players and coach are another important factor, quite a few clubs have a large turnaround of players, you could say the current top 4 clubs at the moments are not doing a lot of chopping and changing.

At the moment Wigan and Saints are the benchmark they are not jumping on the money merry go round we just don't have a salary cap to make that work.

It’s very hard to prove a causative effect but it is noticeable that the end of Bradford’s successful era coincided with the money running out, and they’ve continued to struggle while poor despite having a pretty productive academy. The couple of times poor relation teams (Cas and Salford) have made a run to the GF it wasn’t based on academy products. Salford didn’t have one and afaik it still isn’t confirmed whether Cas will be allowed to keep theirs in its current form, because it was so unproductive at that time. They got their short-term stuff sorted out and that is the best that can be hoped for without sustained and substantial spending. There just aren’t any counter examples in the SL era.

Incumbency as a top team, and the associated stability/continuity are fair points. I’d say that is second most important after money.

It’s ironic. One could say Saints and Wigan are actually the most narrow minded of all of SL. They were at the forefront of the split with the RFL, the appointment of Robert Elstone, and now cutting the league down to 10 so they can have more TV money. Wigan and Saints need less influence on the game because they are the ones causing damage.

Saints are top of the league but can’t sell their ground week in week out? Yet other teams get slandered for their support?

There have only been 4 clubs who have been Superleague Champions and all 4 had a good academy product. If their was no money at all to buy overseas players of reasonable quality (which is a distinct possibilty) then Wigan and Saints would still be in the top 2 with Leeds slowly creeping up that particular ladder.

For that reason, its just my opinion the grass roots via the academy pathway is the primary importance above anything else.

I,m thinking the other way round its the lower clubs that are holding back the growth of Superleague, those clubs have vetoed some of the expansion ideas and instead of the standard of the lower clubs coming up to the top 4 clubs the game is stagnated .

Saints will never sell out their ground because their is very little away support, Huddersfield Giants 4th in the league only brought 95 fans last night and most of the other lower clubs are similar 100 to 200 fans and that includes Leeds as well. There is also the fact that SKY can show games on Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon and then you have C4 joining the party.