I personally enjoyed the game. 2 teams backing up after 72 hours or so put on a great display with a finish that you talk about long after. 2 awesome wins wire within a few days of each other. Ignore the doom mongers and carry on building form.

That was written for the benefit of any Wigan fans lurking on here, am I right...?

There's probably a sociology study to be done on the subtle differences between different rugby league fan bases. I suspect they reflect different cultures in the different towns.

Saints have a kind of swaggering arrogance that rubs people up the wrong way, they know it and they enjoy it. But also there's a sense of humour underneath and they don't take themselves quite as seriously as they do on the other side of the Pennines, or in Wigan. In that sense they are similar to us.

I lived for several years in Leeds while they were dominant and went to Headingley a lot and watched Sky in the pubs their fans use. There was definitely a different culture there - they take rugby league and themselves way more seriously. When things go against them they aren't able to see the funny side and put it in perspective in the way that our fans can. Bad refereeing, or their own players making mistakes, are seen as unforgiveable injustices. They expect success but don't have the same swaggering in your face cocky attitude that Saints do, although this could be that I don't notice it targeted at Wire as much, they like to lord it over Cas and Wakefield. The part I could never understand was why, when watching a team that was so continuously successful, their fans always seemed to be in such a bad mood. They were angry with Brian McDermott, angry with the way the club was run, angry at whoever was their scapegoat on the field at the time.

The difference between Saints and Leeds fans, is when the other team scores their first try and they play the team's try song, you'll get Saints fans dancing to the other team's try song with smug grins on their faces, taking the mick out of the other team fully expecting that they are going to win anyway. In Leeds, they'll all be stood there with faces like slapped booties shouting at the ref/their players, conceding a try is an unforgivable sin and there must be repercussions.

I always found that Cas, Wakey, Hudds fans were much more down to earth but they seriously hate Leeds.

Wiganers come across to me a bit more like the Leeds fans in terms of taking themselves a bit more seriously than Saints but they don't have quite the swaggering obnoxious edge that Saints fans do.

Out of the 100 or so saints fans I've worked with/met, 1 was a decent bloke. I've met plenty of decent wiganers over the years.

No. Wigan aren't good enough to win it this season and probably next. Warrington are. No one really cares who Wigan sign, there's barely a mention of their recent no-mark signings on our forums. Whenever Warrington sign anyone there's a debate about the salary cap and several posts going into depth about why this still won't bring you a title. If they didn't see Wire as a threat they wouldn't feel the need to explain why they're not.

Leeds are more of a threat next season than Wigan.

Wouldn't the same stuff have been said when Wire signed Langer, or Gleeson, or Morley? Just throwing big money at established stars because we don't develop our own, and no team that doesn't have a strong Academy wins the Grand Final.