thought Philbin was immense.... and was absolutely key to the win...putting pressure on the kicker that led to out on the full and the williams drop goal.

I think we desperately need an ‘on it’ Philbin. Other than Walker we’ve lacked a bit of oomph from the bench at times.

In fairness to Vaughan it was his first game for a month. You can be as fit as you can but nothing beats match fitness

Interesting to see who SB chooses as starting props on Friday. I would not be surprised to see Vaughn start with either Harrison or Musgrove, and whoever doesn't make that call will be on the bench with Philbin. Slowing down HKR's go forward and neutralising Lewis and May, I'm sure will be areas of focus.

It'll be vaughan and yates. I've goy a sneaking feeling musgrove picked up an injury, that could be the only reason he didn't get brought back on

I was worried that I had put a hex on him by bigging him up and saying it was a no-brainer he played over Crowther. Pleased that he delivered again, with the most metres among our forwards and the plays you mention in extra time.

Big Sam has installed a belief that we can beat anyone. The lads will go there full of confidence knowing we are the only team to win at Wigan this season and only us and Catalans have won at Hull KR.

I can’t wait. Now The Wire.

A great win and plenty of areas ot improve.

1. Composure playing the ball ( 2 errors)

2.some poor defence reads leading to saints first 2 tries and we gave them a 5 to 3 overlap for their last try.

3. Tai is a dead end to attacks on the right.

But I'm not being churlish. The desire and fight was there to be seen.

I’ve got a feeling Musgrove didn’t come back on because Sam didn’t think he deserved to come back on and I think he’ll make way for Crowther on Friday.

I don't think so to be honest, Burgess said at one point Musgrove has been great for them......and he was so bog standard and still playing really low minutes. He doesn't really have a big impact for his size, but he comes on does a half decent job and allows our other forwards yo hace a break and not be over played.

Not so sure it was exactly put muscled.
Well over the 84 mins.
I would say Saints loaded up. and went to get the unassailable lead perhaps hoping to kick us deep and hold on, and have us make mistakes trying to pull it around by going away from the process.
However us scoring in the last play of the 40 wiped out the advantage.

Vaughan was un-Vaughan-like, perhaps edgy about being over aggressive or clumsy high in the tackles, and perhaps not battle ready after his lengthy absence. A muted impression in the first half, but just about holding fort, as did Musgrove, until our other spelled props returned.

Yates was constantly hitting them with hard runs and the spelling of Philbin kept him punching, Harrison worked hard but seemed to fatigue at the back of his stints.

We can’t afford to let KR hit us with 3 tries in the first half as Saints did, it would be draining to recover that against them.
I’m hoping the extra piece of missing Vaughan, will be the difference on Friday.
Although he’s done it recently, we can’t rely on Musgrove finding another level.

https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... y-off-win/ I am not usually a stats man but a comparison of the stats indicate that we were not out-muscled as much as we seem to think. As normal we fans tend to be a bit more critical of our own players. The tackle bust stats 50/22 are huge. I was one to suggest we had been outmuscled ... must watch the game again. Key Warrington Wolves stats from St Helens play-off win | Warrington Guardian Warrington Wolves’ dramatic eliminator victory over St Helens was a nip-and-tuck thriller – and the game stats reflect that.

https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... y-off-win/ I am not usually a stats man but a comparison of the stats indicate that we were not out-muscled as much as we seem to think. As normal we fans tend to be a bit more critical of our own players. The tackle bust stats 50/22 are huge. I was one to suggest we had been outmuscled ... must watch the game again. Key Warrington Wolves stats from St Helens play-off win | Warrington Guardian Warrington Wolves’ dramatic eliminator victory over St Helens was a nip-and-tuck thriller – and the game stats reflect that.

Re : outmuscled, Burgess himself said at Half time.

“We were losing the physicality, that’s the Saints trademark for the last five six years. They were just beating us to the punch with it and winning the field position battle.

“We just weren’t making great choices. We could have been better but we went in at 16-10 thanks to George Williams."