I’m not that worried about last night. We were always going to struggle to make ground with 1 prop and an impact prop. I think this experience of keeping in the game despit so little ball and territory is something that none of our teams in recent memory would have done. Panic would have set in and we would have been hammered.

Honestly Jonh, nobody gives a $h!t about Wigan on here. We know how great you are in your rental stadium and we are quite sure you will always be fabulous.

Probably better just sticking to your own forum though, most on here just think you are bunch of inbreds....

It's not ideal but if we're going to list last night was the mannor I would prefere to leave a game thinking 100% effort and we could have still won the game in the last minute. Not like previous seasons thinking poor effort poor commitment boring rugby and knowing no real improment imminent.

Powell's task it to find a way to neutralise opposition slowing us down at the ptb.

Why do you need to be so rude and abusive to folks opinion or is it just attention seeking...

I agreed with the gist of what both coaches said in their after match interviews:
Powell saying that Wigan gave Wire a lesson in how to play in wet conditions.
Peet saying that Wigan's game plan was to play off the back of Harry Smith's kicking game, which was very good, and the whole team was committed to chasing & defending on that basis.

Perhaps the occasion, and expectation of the big crowd, got to the Wire players a little and they overplayed and forced a few too many passes, which lead to mistakes, which suited Wigan who were happy to be very conservative with the ball and try to grind out a low scored win, which they did.

Pot and kettle springing to mind here, sir adrian....

If we all shared the same opinion life would be dull.

Just because you have been rattled by a few comments no need to carry on like a child…unless you are one, in which case if you are I apologise.

I wasn’t aware we had our “own” forums. Thought this was a public space where adults can exchange views.

If you cannot cope with that I do worry about your social skills…but I’m sure you are a pussy cat rather than a wolf when not sat behind a keyboard.

Vaughn, Maguire, Kasiano and Green. I make that four props

You obviously do or you wouldn’t be responding. One thing you did get right is that Wigan are the greatest, history proves that.

Well I’m sure I’m not the only one who disagrees with your assessment.
I also appreciate hearing the views of sensible opposition fans, it avoids us living in an echo chamber and end up believing the RFL are involved in a conspiracy against us etc etc

Congratulations to Wigan, the points went to the better team on the night. As to our performance, some lessons to be learned.

Whilst our bench was the weakest that I’ve seen that is not the reason for our downfall. We were second best from the off and our starting 13 was very nearly full strength. We were only missing Clark (Walker is more than capable of being a starting hooker) and Harrison for whom we had Kasiano. We were simply outplayed by a Wigan team, also missing a few, who handled the conditions better and who out enthused us. The positives for us are that, despite being second best, we clung in there and whether you want to see it as poor finishing or poor officiating we could still have snatched it at the very end.

Let’s hope for some improvement next week against a Saints team that will be desperate for a win. There’s still a long way to go but who could have really imagined that we’d be where we are now based on last year’s performance.

We’ve beaten Wigan in early-season games and gone on to lose to them when it matters, so hopefully this will be a good lesson for us and we get to see both teams play each other at full strength in bigger games this year.
I didn’t think Wigan were anything special from what I’ve watched of them pre-Easter (and there were definitely a couple of posters on their forum thinking they might go 0/3 over their easter games), but fair play to them they’ve done what Wigan generally do.

It’s up to us to respond, and what a game to have up next.

Excellent post.

I honestly don’t see you guys having many issues with Saints who are now very much in a transitional period but you can never write them off.

I’m sure Wigan and Warrington will be contesting some key games this season and I think both teams can learn from Friday.

It’s shaping up to be an exciting season for both clubs.

Although Vaughan and Kasiano did start for us, and it did make our initial 13 look strong, both players knew that they were going to play long minutes, with little to no respite from our bench players.

So they would have both been unable to play their usual game from the start and had to conserve their energy to compensate for that.

It would have made more sense to play Matautia at loose forward and play with Maguire at prop, with Kasiano on the bench.

Green is nowhere near ready for Super League and shouldn`t have been selected. Thomas was out 18th man and has held his own as a prop in the games he has played up to now.

Those changes would have given us a far better balanced 17 man squad.