It is a big assumption that our "best team" might have done better. If you are playing a game but thinking of keeping out of trouble you cannot give your best. Wigan big guns had one eye on Wembley too ... our young guns were good but they could play without fear of missing Wembley.
I get your point. I too was very disappointed with our performance in the final but I do not think it was anything to do with being rested.

Fair enough. I never made the point that the final performance was due to being rested* but I do believe if we valued the 2 points we play our strongest side in that Wigan game.

As an aside the club will need to get used to competing in successive games with the strongest side.

*neither do I buy the lack of big game experience either. We had enough international or experienced players out there. One of Wigans try scorers had only played a handful of games too.

Our away form is better than our home form. Winning the LLS wouldn't have made me confident of winning the big one. Finishing 3rd and hopefully getting through to play 2nd away will do me nicely.

I'm of the same view. We have won the LLS before and failed when it matters, it is no guarantee at all.

Still think the experience of the Saints and Leigh games where we were down to 12 men could prove crucial in tight play off matches. Fingers and everything else already crossed.

So, it's St Helens.

And if we win that a trip to Hull KR.

And if we win that a GF against Wigan/Leigh/Salford.

It can't be a Wigan vs Sts final now.

We haven't conceded a try for 267 minutes. Almost 4 and a half hours of rugby.

Just hope a controversial early red card doesn’t decide one of the biggest games of the season (especially ours). You take it if it’s the opposition getting one but devastating when it’s one of your own. May the best team win in each game.

The improvement in defence has coincided with the introduction of Bateman. I don't know if it's causal but he does a lot of tackling.

I noticed that after our Wembley loss, there is a different style of play since then that we have adopted.

We are definitely more focused on defence now than we were before.

Maybe Burgess thinks this will give us a better chance of winning at Old Trafford?

I saw a TV interview where he quoted that the teams with the best league defensive records had been successful in winning the GF in the majority of times.

Relishing the chance for a change. Usually i would be like yes lets avoid this team but nope this year im more confident.

However be a tough ask to be saints well anybody really 4 times in a season!.Then onto Hull KR if we get through.

The if we beat Hull and then Wigan no one can say we had easy games and will definately be the worthy winners.

Saints are so difficult to read, we all suspect that there is an excellent team in there waiting to click into gear, but it just doesn’t seem likely based on what we’ve seen over months, not just weeks. Granted they have had players out, but they were almost at full strength last night, and weren’t a million miles off against us really, balancing Dufty & Vaughan missing on our side.

I’d argue that if you had no knowledge of history or context, looking only at the form and evidence you’d prefer to play Saints over any of the remaining 6.

I hope it's a tough grind out win for us. We need Saints to be on form, but just not quite as good as us. This is the best preparation for the following week.

As things are, rather play Saints than Leigh. Hope that doesn't come back and bite me on the bum.

We were never going to play Leigh. If they had lost on Friday they would have been overtaken by Catalans yesterday and finished seventh.

I wanted Catalans. It's Saints now though so hopefully the players are a bit mentally tougher than I am!

look, you have beaten us 3 times already this season and I don't see that changing on Saturday. We are so poor with Wellens in charge it will be a relief when the season is over. If by some miracle we do win we would have to go to Wigan and that would be a massacre.