Smiffy27:

Yes we can't have any illusions about the task ahead. Reality is though that according to the league rankings (at the end of last year) & betting odds we are thought of as the second/third/fourth best team ... at least. I have my doubts though that sheer hard work & an extra player or two can bridge the gap. But of course ... you never know and we have all been wrong many times before and that's why we keep watching & supporting. In the next game v Wigan the score starts at 0-0 and we might get that early lead.

Yeah I was trying to put a positive spin on it. We should have recruited better over the last 2 years to give Sam half a chance. 

We cant be surprised really. 

Agreed. What worries me the most is not just the game in isolation, but the damage it could do to us psychologically in the longer term. On the evidence I have seen so far this season, we not only appear to be a long way behind Wigan, but also inferior to Hull KR, Saints and Leigh. I would currently put us in the bracket of teams that will finish somewhere between fifth and ninth. Of course, it's still early days and we have scope to improve greatly over the coming months. In my heart, though, I feel it's unlikely that we will be serious challengers this season, and we are going to need some impressive recruitment for 2026 and beyond. Wigan are hugely impressive and are going to set the benchmark for the foreseeable future, so our owners and management need to ask themselves the question - are we seriously up for the challenge of trying to match and surpass them?

Sam Burgess:

We’ve got to learn from it – like anything, we’ll review it with a neutral mind and try and be better for our fans and for everyone involved. That’s our duty – to be better as a group and we’ve continuously been doing that. Today was a little blip.

I realise he has got to be positive and can't say publicly what we all fear to be true. 

I had been locked out of my account since the forum was upgraded and so I am just catching up. I haven't had chance to look through all the pages but it seems to me that we treated this game like a jolly up and Wigan treated it like a SL game.

Players out partying until the early hours Friday morning (a day before the game), Burgess out partying with Beaumont after the game. It all seemed like a bit of a mockery to me and taking the Michael a little considering fans had paid thousands of pounds and turned up in numbers. I don't know about anyone else but if I'd just served up that tripe that we served up I'd be embarrassed to show my face in public let alone partying.

Yes a glorified pjss up preceeded by a visa shambles that made the international press. We are not mature enough as a club to treat these novelty games seriously. I can imagine Wigan had a pjss up after the match - fair dos - they earnt it. I can't imagine them partying the night before.