He means try to retain the grand final . Back to you Wigan

so let me get this straight

8 teams enter this play off thing?
including the final there are only four rounds to it?
some of the teams that qualify can have lost as many as 15 matches on the way to qualifying for it.?
then once in the play offs some teams can lose and still not get knocked out ...???
and some teams can win and then miss out playing in the next round and go straight to a semi final.......??


its sounds very much like the play offs are an easier version of the challenge cup to me.....

I'd put back to back cup wins over one Grand Final win. Back to back Grand Finals would be better than back to back cup wins though. I think if Warrington can keep improving at the rate they are and maybe can add a couple of strike players to your lineup, (i don't know much about your recruitment for next year), then you certainly have a shot at the Grand Final in the not too distant future.

It depends on the situation, if Wigan go onto win say 2 or 3 super league titles in the next 4 or 5 years (hope we will), but don’t win the CC, then in 5 years time, a CC would become more important to us a club. (Just like Leeds this season). If Wire win 2 or 3 more CCs in the next 4 or 5 years but don’t win super league, then surely all of your fans would value a SL title more after it alluding you?

Stripping all of that away, if you’ve won neither for years and years then surely the best is SL which is finishing top of the league as this proves that you are the most consistent and you also being able to raise the intensity and win big playoff games against the best teams in the competition. (and I'm not just saying that cos we've just won it, it's genuinely what I think.)

Don’t confuse SL playoffs as a glorified premiership, which was IMO just an afterthought that most fans or players were not that bothered about.

Slightly off topic here but I'm sure a few of the Wire or Wigan fans reading this thread also follow Lancashire in cricket and during the glory days of the 1990s when Lancs were winning all those Sunday League titles and Natwest Trophies and Benson & Hedges Cup, you would always read in the broadsheet press about how Lancs supporters would "trade them all for one County Championship title". My and my school mates loved our trips to Lords in the 1990s watching Lancs, they were my favourite sporting memories before Wire and Wembley, we would have never traded them for winning the County Championship that nobody watches anyway! I was glad to see when Ian Austin's book came out, that he basically said the same.....as if the players would have traded all the one day wins for the Championship!

I would swap all the one day trophies for a title for Lancs, and maybe one of the Challenge Cups but not both...

Obviously Wembley could never be used for the GF as it is what seperates the challenge cup from the rest with it's history and all. But do you think the reason it has to be Old Trafford is because a lot of the time it's only a week's notice.

Would there be a way to hold the final at a location where it could still become more of an event for supporters (i.e. Cardiff?) or would it still have to stay local so as to help supporters at short notice.

Play it at the Emirates I say.

Winning the GF is the bigger achievement. The winners are worthy champions and can rightly claim to have been the best team of the 27 rounds. Although, technically, the team finsishing 8th in the league could become GF winners, in practice only once has a side finishing outside the top two actually won it. So the finalists, and the winners, have been a pretty close reflection of the season as a whole. This was certainly true this year. As a Wire, fan, I don't think we can call ourselves the best until we've won a GF. However, winning back-to-back CCs has rarely been done and is certainly a major acheivement. The Pies are worthy champions in 2010 but let's hope that not many of their fans refer to the 8 cups they 'bought' through the 80s/90s. That was a much of an acheivement as Hicks and Gillette 'winning' Liverpool Association Football Club.

well said

Ok forget the 8 challenge cups, we'll just concentrate on the 5 consecutive championships, just remember that everyone back then was allowed to spend money not just wigan.

personaly i wouldnt swap two cup medals for one gf medal,but i would swap one for one.fwiw i thought both the wire and the wigan deserved a trophy each this year as you both entertained most of the time.

Nah, they wouldn't like that. There would be serious danger of a real atmosphere being created. At which point the stadium would probably implode.

More teams have won back to back challenge cups than have won SL. I know you think its some massive achievement to win a knock out cup against semi pro teams but the likes of Hudds, Cas, Wakefield and Batley have already been there done that.