Saints bottled it this year.

We bottled it in 2011, played well in 2012 but just missed out due to lack of experience and really bottled it in the second half in 2013.

The other finals we’ve lost were, for me, expected.

If we have the worst half back pairing in donkey’s years how have we bottled it exactly?

Six weeks ago I was saying how I thought we are about as average a side a you can get and we’d be lucky to make the top 4 with our form. Outside a run of 8 wins in the Spring we’ve been a below mid table side.

Getting to two finals and making fourth despite having such poor stats [outside those 8 wins in a row our season has been]:
P24 W10 D1 L12

Not even won half the games we’ve played outside the 8 wins in a row. Even two of those wins were against a second string Catalans and a terrible Hull.

Bottlers is not the word for this team. I’d say overachievers and a damning indictment for the rest of this competition who couldn’t even get above us into the top 4 our beat us in cup games to get to both finals!

“Bottlers”, rubbish. With our halves I would say “over-achievers”. Good first season from Price, bring on next season...

Oh I agree it’s a miracle we’ve got to two finals with that cack half back pairing but I still say losing six finals says final bottlers to me.Think we should invest in a psychologist as clearly they just freeze on the big day.

Yeah that’s fair enough and a lot of us have said it ourselves but as I keep saying; what does that say about the rest of the league and what the hell are the rest of them all doing?

We haven’t been anywhere near the best side in the country in the last five years yet in the last three years we’ve won the LLS, finished fourth once and got to four of six finals. What the hell is everyone else doing? We’ve got and had so many deficiencies that we should be a 5th-7th placed side, for me, maybe with the odd CC semi final.

What is everyone else doing that sees us keep overachieving? It’s not saying a lot for the rest of this competition, that’s for sure!

Two very poor half backs plus a very average and unfit Thompson, an over the hill Westwood, a less than average Hughes, a two stone overweight Murdoch-Masilla, a very poor GKing, no real back-up/interchange for Clark... yet we’ve had one LLS, a fourth placed finish and four of the last six finals made!

I thought the team gave a very good account of themselves & the difference between the teams was Tomkins who turned a very mediocre Wigan side into a champion side. He was the x factor that we are short of.

Don't think we froze. But like every other team in the League and like every other set of half backs we found the Wigan defence just too good. Their end of season defence has been totally remarkable. They've had so few tries scored against them. Very difficult to create anything against them.
Our defence is better than last year but it's not up to Wigan standard yet.

There's no creativity at half back, end of. Our pack was good enough even though it carried an unfit BMM, our defence on the day was good enough.

Great season on the back of last year and the poor start we had, culminating in two final appearances. There were two better teams than Warrington in SL this year that didn't reach a final.

I don't think we bottled it, just didn't have the nous to do the job in hand.

We don't have a bad team of players. We need a good half-back partnership & that should be sorted by next year (when Brown goes)
I would change the captain next year from Chris Hill to Jason Clark. We need Sitaleki Akauola to step up a gear or get another prop.

Hill has to be replaced as captain.

We're not bottlers, we just don't have the key to unlock defences.

If Austin lives up to his NRL form then that's still not enough - get that 2nd marquee signing and buy Drinkwater. Those 2 together could be another Nat Wood & Lee Briers.

As for next season's captain......Mike Cooper.

You dont get to 2 finals and compete and run both teams close in both if your bottlers.

Yes as long odds underdogs we cannot accuse the 2018 side of being bottlers. The form book and bookies were correct. By and large Wigan have better playes and are more effective as a team. We can beat the top sides in a one-off situation occasionally but not consistently yet.

There have been a lot of different players used in those six finals. Ratchford, Hill and Westwood are the consistent links in all of them.

Maybe after the game when Ratchford was being presented with the Harry Sunderland they should have asked him why he freezes in big games.

Also I'm sure I remember the great Les Boyd team bottling it in two Lancashire Cups, a John Player Special and a Premiership final. Could have done with a psychologist back then to help big Les with his nerves on the big occasion.

Yeah good one. A lot of those finals were against the only full time professional side in the league.

When you play a GF the results are largely 50:50 between the teams as no team can win every final. However the CC final losses are harder to explain away.