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.

No complaints from me. best team won. and yes, we did bottle it. Again.

Defensively and coming out our own half we're pretty much bang on. as soon as we get to the 4th and 5th tackle in their 30 or 20 we look completely clueless. A high bomb to the corner on EVERY last tackle play will not win you the game. We've been asking and crying out for Roberts to take the line on all season, why did he suddenly decide that he has the ability to ghost through the line instead of passing the frigging ball on Saturday? Unbelievable. All Ratch needed was a bit of effort from literally anyone to be a support runner and we could have had that game. Grand finals are all about commitment and the 1% extra efforts. Wigan had that and we didn't. When it kicked off at half time we should have gone out in the 2nd half and murdered Escare for starting it, the cocky garlic eating surrender monkey.

Also, to the two delightful gentlemen sat behind me, who left with 15 minutes to go screaming how effing s*** we are... Don't come to a GF again if all you are going to do is slag the team off for the full 80 minutes. and then call all the Warrington fans around you deluded happy clappers for believing we could possibly win anything. yes you may be right in some respects but its quite annoying, everyone within 10m all said 'thank f*** for that' when you got up and left.

You had nothing to say and you said it too loudly.

Other than that and barring the result, had a great day out on the ale. I'll never get bored of seeing my team walk out at a final.

I think what I understand by “bottlers” is very different to what you do. I would say we largely played as we did all season (in fact in defence and penalties better) but we weren’t good enough. As I understand it , bottling is not performing to your potential due to pressure of the occasion.

definitely over achievers this year