Sums up the Warrington mentality too. We had an open top bus parade after losing the Challenge Cup final in 1990.

We beat Featherstone, Trafford, Bradford and Oldham on the way to the final then got our s spanked by Wigan, and we had an open top bus parade. Wire fans of a certain vintage get misty eyed with nostalgia about that final, "Dessie broke Kevin Iro's jaw" they will say.

Wire fans will also mythologise the team of the mid/late 80s, which only won the Premiership and the Lancashire Cup, while moaning bitterly into their pint glasses about how Wigan 'ruined the game'. Ask any Wire fan of that era about players like Edwards, Hanley, Bell, Offiah and their reaction will be snide sneering rather than recognising these guys for having the relentless mindsets or outrageous talents that made them winners.

"Wigan were the only ones who were full-time" they will claim, as though that was the only difference. Rarely is it mentioned that because they were involved in the latter stages of every tournament, they usually had to fight the title run-in by playing 3 games a week, without the large squads and ability to rotate like today, and still managed to win.

You can see that mentality today with some of the threads on here.

At some point every season, we have some variation of the theme "selection headache - how do we fit all our greats in the team" Last week there were people saying Tom Lineham will struggle to get back in to the side. Well if he was available and fit, I would have certainly wanted him in a game like yesterday because he's produced in big games.

When any of our players sign a new contract, there's lengthy fawning on here about "great news for the club, we're looking well set for the future". The question to ask when you see one of our players re-signing, is would Wigan or Saints have wanted to sign him? I bet you will rarely be able to honestly say yes.

There was a thread a couple of weeks ago discussing whether Ratchford was our greatest ever signing of the Super League era. Nothing against Ratchford who is a fine player in any era, but if we're discussing him as our greatest signing, it sums up the difference between us and clubs like Wigan, Leeds and Saints.

The other irony, is amongst the readiness to overhype many of the "nearly men" who play for Wire, there's a refusal to acknowledge how good Lee Briers really was.

Yes the Salford recruitment model, and the Castleford model in Powell's early years are examples to look at.

These clubs seem to pick up players from other clubs that seem like they are so-so and then take them to a much higher level than they had reached before.

Warrington take players who have reached a higher level at other clubs and then take them to becoming so-so with us.

Ratchford and Hill being the exceptions
Cooper has returned a better player

Daryl Clark has continued his MoS level

Charnley and Lineham have neither regressed or progressed

But then

Gelling CAN look devastating, it's just when he can be bothered
Our halves look nowhere near [imarquee level[/i
If Jason Clark was supposed to be some kind of NRL Colossus, I'll show my bottom in Bridge St.
BMM and Akuaola are merely thinner versions of Danny Lima, with greater stamina levels
Hughes is just Hughes

Then there's the ones we've let go
Our two YouTube sensations
Roberts. (don't get me started)
Sandow Flaky (at times) but with errrr.... issues

Westerman.... see Hughes/Jason Clark

Then there's the "experiments"
Bailey, Wheeler, Cox etc

Our recruitment is a lot more miss than hit

Thought this many a time ,successful teams help themselves by bending rules to nth degree.

I broadly agree with lefty's list, but Lineham I think has bucked the trend. He was a 'typical Wire' player, before we signed him. Someone who looked like he had talent but flattered to deceive and frustrated the Hull fans. Then with us, after his first year or so, he became a more reliable performer, who shows up in big games, like the kind of player we usually sign and then make worse with us.

If anything Charnley has regressed, after a good start with us, but I find him hard to assess. He hasn't looked like a bad player, he's just become more peripheral, which may be more due to the rest of the team than him.

Westerman was a classic Wire signing if ever there was one.

Kevin Brown was another who underachieved with us compared to what he had been doing with Hudds and Widnes, although when he was out through injury, we missed him. Him and Kurt Gidley fall in the category of players who would have been good to sign a few years earlier, because they had a good attitude but were just past their best physically/had injury problems when they joined us. A younger Kurt Gidley could have been an Aussie version of Simon Grix.

Fair comments, sally
Lineham just let's himself down with his appalling discipline
Charnley's [iedge[/i has been blunted by his overuse as a battering ram, thus tiring himself out (to some extent)
Brown I'd forgotten about. Enjoying an [iIndian summer[/i to his career, but never really did anything for us
Forgotten about Gidley, too. All guns blazing for his first couple of months. After that, little shown/age catching up with him