Quote Snaggletooth="Snaggletooth"This is true, our only chance of silverware for years has been the CC, thankfully we have won three recently. The mentality for going the full season we have shown once in the mid 90's and once in 2011 between our CC victories. Leeds having been in more GF's than you shake a stick at and Wigan generally winning one when they get there.
Sadly i stated to the guys i stand with, that our squad would not win a GF because of the mentality thing. Am i correct in thinking that only Morley and M Monas had won a GF? How many of the Wigan team last year had won one? i think like us a couple? therefore why could a couple of there players/coaches spur them on. '"
This 'mentality' point gets overdone IMO.
Warrington hadn't been in any major finals for nearly 2 decades and we won our first three in a row despite the theory that "you have to lose one to win one".
We have played Leeds the bastions of big game strength in 3 major finals, won 2 lost 1.
Our overall record in major finals under Tony Smith is won 3 lost 2. Factors of luck will influence any one individual game you can only really judge fair conclusions from looking at a bigger sample of games where you would expect luck on the upside and downside to even out over time.
Last year's Grand Final for instance, people talk about Wigan's great big game mental strength over ours, but how come they were getting panned before we lost Monaghan and Ratchford? Sure they came back and ran the tries in when we had a completely disrupted backline, but had Monaghan and Ratchford been on the pitch, do you think Wigan were going to put on a great comeback and turn us over? We will never know, but my money is on no.
