Yes and I remember the era when we had Mackey, Davies and Bateman; I remember when we had Langer and Kohe-Love; or the Paul Cullen era with Martin Gleeson and Nat Wood, we played some awesome rugby in those days with some great atmospheres on the terraces, much better than it is today. We also had a lot of dire games where we lost to lower table teams and it killed off our chances of winning anything, just like the team of the later part of the 1980s did.

Maybe we are all loyal to the teams of our childhood which is why the younger generation today get called happy clappers. I am a happy clapper for the team of the turn of the 1990s which is why I probably overrate Gary Mercer, Paul Cullen and Kelly Shelford compared to what they really were. I still believe Cullen was shafted by the powers that be because of his disciplinary record when he should have been a GB player.

If you went back 30 years now and applied the same standards of critique to the team of the late 1980s that you do to the current one, what would you have said? In 1986/87 we came 3rd and beat Wigan home and away, the only losses they had all season. We signed Woods and Drummond who were two of the best players in the league at that point. The next four years we went 6th, 11th, 8th and 9th and the only trophies we won were the Lancashire Cup and Regal Trophy. Surely with the players we had on our roster that was serious underachievement, worse than anything we've had under TS and Price where we've done everything but win the Grand Final, with an inferior set of players.

I get the argument that Wigan were full-time and had that advantage, and could understand if we finished 2nd repeatedly, but we were well off the pace.

This isn't me trying to denigrate great players from the past, I know they were great players. I'm saying if we apply the same level of critical standard to the teams of our youth that we do to the current team it puts some perspective on the situation today. Also I'm interested in hearing the take of those who were around back then too. My guess is that we had a window of opportunity around 1986/87 where we were on the verge of being a really special side and something went wrong with our decision making (86/87 was after Andy Gregory left so it can't all be that).

Very fair points. It was more than just results though for me. It was the crackling atmosphere in Wilderspool, the fact that the club were massive underdogs due to financial clout, the aggression and hostility of our team, the biff, the flair of the Aussie signings. There felt a togetherness with the players and the support. Of course we got beat but our expectations were lower you could rest assured we would give Wigan a bloody good game though.

Difficult to compare with now as since 2004 with our financial backers and large gate receipts and TV money we have no reason to not be competing with the best - at least not on paper. The fact we have not won a GF in 15 years of moving to the HJ Stadium says a lot about culture and attitudes at the club. We should have won 4 on the averages. It's not by accident we fall short of the main prize. That's why we can be more critical now, than then.

Yes the atmosphere point is a big one, which comes back to the start of the thread.

I try to avoid nostalgia bias, and I remember some seasons being better than others for atmosphere, not always correlated with results (I remember the Centenary season being flat even before 80-0, and 1998 being a distinctly dead season on the terraces, but 2001 despite some shockers on the field being a real high point for atmosphere).

Through the 1990s and early 2000s though I thought the atmosphere was pretty good, and it transferred OK for the first couple of seasons at the HJ. Something changed for me around the time of signing Andrew Johns. Remember how great the atmosphere was on Johns' debut. The HJ was rocking. I don't remember that many great atmosphere at the HJ after that.

In the later part of the Cullen era the atmosphere was fractious and frustrated. It got better when TS arrived and we had some good atmospheres in games when we started putting on a run of results in TS' first season, and in the playoff after we won the League Leaders' Shield and nilled Huddersfield although that was more a celebratory-party atmosphere than the great atmospheres of games in the past.

After that, it went back to a mixture of boredom and anxiety. 2011 was our best season in terms of quality on the pitch, but my memory of that was most league games feeling like a kind of dress rehearsal while we piled up big wins waiting for the playoffs, and a nauseating anxiety in the playoff against Leeds which we lost.

It was the same a few years later when we had that big comeback against Widnes in the playoffs. Had that game been a few years earlier the HJ would have been rocking with every score we pulled back, but I remember thinking something was missing.

After that I moved away and so I don't go as often now so I can't comment on every home game but from reading the comments on here it doesn't seem like the atmosphere has got any better.

Putting aside the downturn in atmosphere and the hypotheticals of John Woods playing under modern coaches (Price would loan him out to Doncaster until he learned to master high bombs to Toby King) I think what displeases me most is being referred to as an old timer.

Cheeky sod. Anyway, excuse me I'm off for a Horlicks and to watch one of my Cagney & Lacey VHS collection.

Absolutely bang on this,I’ve pretty much said similar in other posts,back in the day we were crap with no expectations and had great times playing Wigan, if we won it was like winning a cup and you went home buzzing. Now with the finances etc we should be a lot better and we are not hence the criticism. Anyway aside from our short comings I personally don’t like the direction the club is going the game as become to sanatized and Sky is a joke in comparison to NRL coverage.

Forget about nostalgia, Tony Smith should be ashamed of himself that he couldn't win the grand final with the teams he had at his disposal. Our 2011 team would put 40 points on this saints team by half time!!

Spot on Moe! On paper our current side is at least on a par with Wigan and Saints if not slightly better than Wigan. It's certainly better than Salford and Cas but what they seem to have is a team mentality and togetherness and a game plan that promotes attacking rugby. A cup win is great but overall we've had an extremely underwhelming season.

He did win 2 Grand Finals, when he had a Leeds team with guys like Sinfield, Burrow, McGuire, Peacock who had a relentless culture of winning big games.

When he was Wire coach, he had a good team too but it didn't have those big game winners, and in our peak seasons of 2011-12 the reason we didn't win a Grand Final was because we came up against Leeds with those players.

It is certainly difficult to look back to the past and expect memories to be a true reflection of both individual players and teams, but......... What we do know for certain is that there are fewer people playing RL in the UK and the quality has dropped significantly. Even those players that are half decent get bought up by NRL, and coming in the opposite direction we have 32 year olds who are trying to eke out their last few playing days, or individuals that you would either find dead in a ditch, or selling real estate, and that the NRL will not touch with a barge pole.

The result is that we end up with lots of very poor games whilst well coached teams like Saints, with a decent but not outstanding set of players, can win the vast majority of their games. You don't need to wonder if you are getting misty eyed about Langer, Jiffy or Monas because the standard of the current squads is so desperately low that it's certainly not a question of through a glass darkly.

Can't give you an argument.
Although all my bets went down again.

Still buzzing...…….. haha. What a load of tosh. That's one of the reason your always the bridesmaid, because your content with garbage one up rugby league. As good as Wembley was, it was considered a huge upset. The term 'huge upset' should be an insult in itself. A team like Warrington shouldn't be causing huge upsets because they should be one of the top teams.

It's was propaganda...and you bought it.

Now you've come from under Superblue and had your say, get back under him whilst he finishes.

You need to have a look at yourselves! I've been a RL fan for over 50 years and for a vast majority of that time Warrington have been also rans! Season after season of nothingness. "Car crash" crowds of 5'600 were above average!! Now you're the reigning challenge cup holders..again. You have no divine right to any success but your club is in a fantastic position can command the attention of world stars and is probably in the best shape its ever been! Pack in whingeing! After the season you have had it grates on the nerves of us current lesser mortals!

No doubt what is “disappointment” can just as easily be read as “entitlement”.