Fate and destiny can be funny things at times.

Not many leeds fans thought their team would end up at old trafford again this season. It seemed nailed on to be warringtons season. But it seems leeds and their players had other ideas.

Warringtons time will come, just maybe not as soon as it should have,

Really Painfull over the years i have seen some good times,Mike Greg lift the Lancs Cup,Dessie Lift the Regal Trophy,Seen the lads trot out at Wembley 1990 thinking if we win this one it will be the biggest upset in sporting History.

Also said to my Boss when we beat Catalans away,Wigan at home and Hull Away well if we dont win it this year we never will i hope i am wrong.

I remember walking past a leeds fan who said that in the 2004 season (eerily similiar to yours in terms of the way the teams dominated their opposition week in week out) after they lost to the bulls in the qualifying semi. Turns out a young leeds team came back to win it that year so we never had to ponder it.

Warringtons time will come.

I can think of a few worse days as a Wire fan.....

2005 playoff defeat to Hull - all the excitement of Andrew Johns being here and us having had a pretty good season for the first time in ages, we blew it. It wasn't like losing to Leeds last Friday where we were edged out in a close game - we were second best start to finish and were beaten by a very tired Hull who then lost by 70 points next week against Bradford.

1996 Regal Trophy semi final to Saints - 80-0, enough said, after that game I felt numb, it was like the end of the rugby league world, I had a sinking feeling that Warrington were about to go into a dark era, and we did.

2002 home loss to Widnes at Easter, the first derby with Widnes back in Super League, we lost and the atmosphere amongst the fans was poisonous, I've never been in a Warrington crowd so angry, even the home loss to Huddersfield that prompted the sit in a couple of years earlier (when Smyth got 4 tries in the first half on debut and we still lost). The target for the venom was Matt Rodwell, who had made the mistake of trying to communicate with the fans on Wolfweb so had 'opened himself up' (this was unusual in the pre-Twitter days) and then not been very good on the pitch. Probably most of the anger was aimed at Steve Anderson really but Rodwell was the one associated with it and hence Rodwell and his family got confronted and abused by Wire fans. Various Wire players have become villains to the crowd, Andy Currier, Martin Gleeson etc, but with Rodwell it was different, it was like he was Ian Huntley or something the hate was so deep.

Losing by 60 odd points at Harlequins in 2009. New coach (Tony Smith) had been in a few weeks, but we were still as hopeless as before, the fans were shouting abuse at Matt King for being an overpaid Aussie just over here to top up his pension fund, so King gave them some abuse back. It made us the laughing stock of the league and left me with a "where do we go from here?" feeling. (Answer = to Wembley to win the Cup a few months later).

Completely gutted. Had to put up with a mate from Leeds texting me every five minutes over the weekend.

To add salt in the wounds I had to sit through the derby defeat on Saturday afternoon on the Gwladys.Lost all my loose change too.

this, . ive been watching wire for over 35 years and this as been the most bitter defeat ive ever had to swallow 1975 cc final to young to remember much about it , 1986 semi at maine rd was never going to beat wigan that day although we pushed them real close , 1990 cc final simular to 86 team of part timers against a team of super stars , imo too i cant see us having a better chance than we had this season too ps not saying we wont win it but really did believe this was our year

I don't believe in fate or destiny; I'm more of a preparation meets opportunity (or lack of preparation misses opportunity) sort of guy and a believer in coincidence.

I think Leeds have looked like GF material since minute 26 in the CC final at Wembley. When they were playing Huddersfield the other week I said "I don't want to play Leeds next week!". When Wigan played Catalan I said "let's pick the winner of this because of the five day turnaround!".


On Friday it was a mixed feeling of anger and "if only...", as the week has progressed I'm more gutted by the day.

I got over Fridays game before I even left the ground. Seriously. I got speaking to a fella on the way out and between us we'd watched Warrington for 80+ years and we both said that we'd watched the best Wire team playing the finest rugby that either of us had ever seen. We agreed that we felt privileged to have been part of it.

I thought the same at the time and i think the same now, that Wigan were there for the taking

I actually feel quite good now. I've seen far worse moments watching the Wire. The real bad moments aren't like last Friday, some of them came in 2002, and was it 1997 when we came within a couple of hours of going bust. Then there was 1970 against Salford at home (0-50), and many others. We've had the best season for years, we HAVE won something, we could have gone further, but we didn't. Still some great memories of the season.

This is precisely why it hurt so much I think, we used to be resigned to the fact we were poop and we'd take the hammerings on the chin as we didnt have high expectations whereas this year we really could (and probably should) have gone all the way

I believe this as well. 25 mintes into that final something special happened to leeds. Something suddenly clicked and they've never looked back.

Hindsight is wonderful thing, and not many could have foreseen that brave loss would spark an unprecedented run to the grand final.

Unfortuatly warrington were collateral damage on the way.

Now leeds can win their 5th super league title, from 5th place, you couldn't make it up could you?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Jeez that must have hurt.