Looks as though the game plan was to blow them away in the first half. Pity Bailey picked up a leg injury as Hill must have done a fair few minutes on the pitch - it was perhaps being a bit greedy since we won, but I would have liked to see him getting a bit of a breather in the second half. Phibs impressed I thought, but he only came on for short bursts. Morgan Smith was very good, his tackling was excellent and Sam Wilde was pretty busy. Far too many mistakes but some of the players looked jaded. Mind you, Widnes looked knackered. Another good performance by Ratchford, and Russell must have covered about 60 miles with his scoots.

Lets hope we at least get Clark and Westerman back next week. One big effort against Wigan and we can rest a few bodies the following week at Hull.

Hmmmm

in regards to Kevin Penny being dropped for tonight, this from Tony smith is all you need to know"Matty Russell probably caught the eye tonight"

no one had a bad game tonight but Matty Russell in no way shape or form was a stand out player what so ever.........ever ......neither did Rhys Evans do anything worthy of mention he just did nothing wrong.....

Kevin Penny would have ripped their left edge to bits.....

Tony smith may well lead us to the league leaders shield possibly even a Grand final appearance....but he continues to be an absolute hole in relation to the treatment of SOME of his players.......

Ashton Sims continues to offload like Jeremy Beadle while players like Currie and Atkins etc drop balls on more than one occasion, but its our true strike weapon and only player with genuine pace that gets dropped for a fumble.

I'm completely at a loss.........

happy we are top of the league but at a loss to the treatment of Penny......

If we want to win the LLS next week handling & discipline needs to be worked on,but i'm sure there will be a plan somewhere in the dressing room to cover next week's match.

How fast was Hill for that try ? Amazing & reminiscent of the Paul Wood 50 yarder at Salford a few years ago....i think Paul Rauhihi scored a 30 yard try down the wing in the same match.

We don't know the real reason he has been dropped and cab only speculate.

We won and are top of the league don't see why ppl are complaining our wingers are not ideal but we're winning games without penny so somthing is working

I think we can't simply look to fill positions in the team with players that have a conventional role. Is Currie a BR ? because he doesn't take the ball up that much like Jack Hughes, but he does make plenty of breaks on the edges to set up, or score tries. Sims doesn't make that much ground as a prop but can be very disruptive on the opposition defence with his offloads. If we have a shortage of forwards on the field, Daryl Clark can come on and play that role rather than hooker. Matty Russell is not a conventional winger but can make big big yards to take us up field. Evans doesn't make many breaks as a centre, but his defence has become something else with his timing of the tackle. So TS is using the strengths of individual players to fill gaps in his team either because they are not present in the squad, or are lost due to injury. I am not a huge fan of Russell, but I have to admit he is invaluable at present because he gets us quickly back up field and negates the strength of teams with big packs like Hull and Saints. Penny is a great try scorer, but when he is not in the team, we still seem to score plenty of tries - in short, the team selection of TS is working out pretty well, so we can hardly complain that he has 'got it wrong'.

I have to agree WO.
I'm a big Penny fan and he does offer real pace, is good in the air and scoots well from dummy half. His defence has improved considerably too.
But I'm not TS and I think although I get the impression he can be pig headed over selection, I believe here he's keen on keeping as settled a side as possible.
Apart from forced changes we've had the same 17 week in week out for some time now.

For those of you who can go week in week out I can understand some of the frustrations with handling etc, but I enjoyed it and once our wingers Hill and Sims scored the opening 2 tries we looked in control apart from a few breaks - even though we were a bit sloppy in the 2nd half.

Strange experience on he South Stand concourse after last night's game - Warrington fans cheering on Wigan!!

Quite a crowd watching the final minutes on TV with shouts of "Come on Wigan" being heard. Big cheer when they scored.

The cry of "Sneeeeeeyyd" when he kicked out on the full at the restart was quite funny too.

Can't go next Friday against the pies as I will be in USA but will be cheering from afar. I do hope we don't have a "Back in the box" moment like Saints did against us when going for the LLS.

I've got to agree with your summary Chaz spot on.

I'm not Russell's biggest fan not because I want to see the lad fail or believe that he doesn't put the effort in but because I don't think he is either the best winger that we have at the club nor indeed the best FB. I thought that he had a decent game at Wembley and last night's effort was fair enough although I'm quite surprised that Widnes for once didn't torment him with continual bombs they have previous in that regard and their warm up routine suggested that they'd try their luck again.

Maybe Penny isn't as popular with his team mates as some of the other characters - and if so that may go someway to explaining why he is apparently out of favour.

However, I would always have in my team. He's exciting and he's an entertainer and after all that's why I watch the game - to be entertained. Its a sad reflection on todays brand of Rugby League when you realise that Brian Bevan would struggle to get into any of the top sides due to his defensive frailties.

I don't think there is anything going on 'behind the scenes' with Penny. I feel like if there was he wouldn't have been played last week. We're all pretty sure there's something going on with Lineham, and he isn't being played at all.

I think with Penny that he is just not rated very highly by TS, and probably has his frailties honed in on more than other players. I said last week that Penny's dropped ball and being out of position once (that I saw) against Catalan might be the justification TS needs to bench Penny for another lengthy spell. Barring another big bout of injuries, I don't think we'll see Penny again this season.

I do reluctantly agree with WO's summary, but I would play Penny every week.

One win away from the League Leaders Shield and another away from a Grand Final and all we can go on about is Kevin Penny.

He's a good lad and a good winger, but you'd think he was in the Billy Slater or Greg Inglis mould based on the mass hysteria every time he's not in the team.

We're winning games, going about our business well. I'm sure Tony Smith has his reasons for not playing him and I'm sure he's explained them to Penny as well. Smith doesn't owe, you, I or any other fan an explanation as to why he's not picking him.

How about we just get behind the boys who are in the 17 and I'm sure Penny will be given an opportunity soon enough.

DAG
I don't think anyone is not behind the team.
It's a forum and people like to have their say - same as you and me.
I don't think there's hysteria about Penny not playing - just some frustration and disappointment that we don't have a truely fast winger in the team.

I can sort of see why that's the case as I said on an earlier post.
We'd all just love to know why!

I like what Russell brings to the side, he's still learning the wingers trade, but thought he scored a good try last night which wasn't a simple finish, and as others have said, he really gets us moving forward.

I'm not mad keen on our reliance of dummy half running to create opportunities, but for as long as TS uses this as his game plan, Russell has to play for me.

Well, you can get behind the boys on the field, meanwhile I'm gonna worry about when we play the better smarter teams that have previously exploited the weaknesses of certain players that have cost us,