I understand your points, Ditas, but, we could have (and should have) coped with Joel's injury.
Forward (1 of the 4 subs, not (imo) a good idea) comes on, Grix drops to centre, and original centre goes onto wing. WE SHOULD HAVE BE ABLE TO COPE. We didn't.
I could tell the teams mental strength just "turned off" when that injury occured, and that's what killed us. WE SWITCHED OFF AS A TEAM.
The set of six which resulted in Goulding's try was (from memory) just poor attempts at tackling. We treaded water til half-time, and looked like we were going through the motions early in the second half, well before Ratch's injury.

As I said on page 1, masters of our own downfall.
I'd have expected more from Smith/Poaching/Marshall etc to marshall our troops better, between Joel's injury and Wigan's 2nd try (before Stef's injury). Stef's injury was the nail in the coffin. We were mentally shot at before.

there was a moment that summed up our structure and the rest of the night to follow for wire.

Around 10-15 mins into the 2nd half, there was a scrum about 10 off our line....

The front row packed, but nobody else for a minute....

All our players were looking around wondering who was playing in the back row....

Briers ended up getting in the pack himself!!

were we defending?

From what I've read/heard, Joel woke up in the ambulance. Whether this is true or not, nobody can see a team mate/friend in that situation and not have it play on their minds for a while. It would only be natural if our players finished the half, went through the interval and even into the 2nd half with their thoughts quite possibly more on Joels condition than the job in hand.

Unfortunately injuries are part of the game.

All of those Warrington players will of experienced players being taken from the field before but as pro-rugby league player's they must adjust to unexpected changes.

I hope Joel a speedy recovery, his try was superb.

You have to be ready for anything and everything. Saints lost wellens in 2002, wigan lost richards in 2010. Both teams won. Champions teams find a way.

Wire don't have the versatility in the backrow to allow players to slot into the centres (allowing the centre to cover wing/fullback) So they should have had a back on the bench. You have hogdson on the bench and if all is going well you have an experienced head who allows ratchford to move up into the halves if the game needs a change, or you have a plan b if things go tits up like last night. For example, had leeds had the same situation they would have been able to cope more adequatley because 2 of the backrowers delany and ablett are both good centres so it would have been easy to re-jig the backline. Other teams have the same which is why they don't have a 'utility player' on tghe bench.

If your backrowers can't really play centre and you have no utility or back on the bench you are asking for trouble, and smith got it.

And yet Saints managed to lose four grand finals in a row, and Leeds lost five Challenge Cup finals in recent times: if they were champion teams how come they didn't find a way to win them?

I'll try to be fair in my view here.

I'm not sure it was the two injuries that really were the pivotal aspects on Saturday. As a wigan I thought we were in control of the game until you made your subs in the first half. In the first 20 minutes wigan blew 3 clear chances to score. The first try from wire came against a run of wigan dominating and then for ten minutes you blew us off the park.

After that your forwards were clearly tired and all that wigan needed was a try to keep themselves in. The key to wigan winning this was to make it a contest. Warrington have the stronger team but it's clear for all to see that they blow teams out early because there isn't the stamina to dominate the top teams for the whole match. At the 50th minute I commented that wire were already flat out and I quietly thought it may have been our day.

I'm not sure that the injuries were key as a number of Wigans trys came from carving wire up down the middle. We also scored twice down our right hand side where we had been creating opportunities all game. The only other try was Richards which by then the match was over.

thanks for trying to be fair.


I'd hate to see you NOT trying to be fair

fookin ell

Your wrong. I honestly believe our forwards were walking all over yours in the first 30ish minutes. We were easily making 40 / 50 yds each set. Your opportunities came from structured attacks within your own half, generally against the run of play.

Plus also, please name me one side who has the 'stamina to dominate top teams for the whole match' please? Does this comment suggest that Wigan can? Id like to investigate this a little further if you don't mind. In my mind 'dominating a top team for the whole match' would mean lots of points scored against not many conceded? Would you agree? I mean, you could say that a team could be dominant with possession without scoring lots of points but is that really dominant? You could equally say that a team could be dominant with field position without scoring lots of points but, again, would that be truly dominant?

So top teams would be Hudds, Us, Leeds and you? Ok, well you didn't dominate us in the 1st half of the final and didn't beat us the rest of the season, so you couldn't dominate us for any matches let alone whole matches. Hudds beat you twice in the league and, if I remember rightly, were on top for the first 10 / 20 mins of your playoff game, so you didn't dominate them for any full games. You are 2 wins from four against Leeds and, given your biggest winning margin was only 10 points that would also suggest that you didn't dominate them either for any full games.

Unless, when you say big teams, you mean Salford, London or Widnes? In which case I'd accept that you were dominant for a couple of games.

I think you make a very good point about the Wire mentally switching off after that third try. The celebrations and Westwood kissing to the camera was illustrative of a team that thought that they had the game won. And Briers is a typical English half back. When his forwards are dominate, he looks very good. When he does not have the time, he looks gash.

Another who thinks that having to re-shape your back-line after two injuries with a bench of four forwards to replace them didn't lead to the loss of the game is clearly high.

I have also heard that one of the other players we had on the pitch also suffered an injury that should have led to him being replaced but circumstances meant he couldn't be.

You're right, they did, but I suspect that was a factor in their collapse. In contrast to your approach we defended quite conservatively, as we have done throughout the playoffs (presumably a change of tac to reflect the additional stamina required in the playoffs where all your opposition are top teams). If you look at how we defended against Leeds we hung back and contained them almost perfectly, and this is demonstrated no better than when Burrow made his scampering runs which would have cut us open had we not hung back. Granted there is a risk in defending like this and it almost backfired on us as if anyone can take advantage of that defending style it is Wire, but we hung on and by half time the differences were taking their toll.

The second big factor was the decision not to take the two. It was a gamble by Tony Smith when he overruled Briers but one he perhaps had to take. Maybe he could see his team tiring and thought he needed to finish the game off there and then but in hindsight it was a mistake to think Grand Finals can be won in the 30th minute. Perhaps that six minute purple patch brought on a bit of hubris and caused him to disrespect his GF opponents.

i've since heard carvell shouldn't have been playing, and from reading the guardian last week, it seems a miracle that harrison is even setting foot on a rugby pitch at all this year. he didn't return in the second half in in effect we were rotating off one player.

If that is indeed the way you chose to defend then I agree its risky. Had circumstances been different, and at 16-2 down, it could have bitten you right on the backside.

Having said that I agree with your point for taking the 2. We should have gone for the kick and, it seems, all the players knew it was the right thing to do but, when you look at the purple patch of ours immediately before that, we could potentially have gone on to get another try. Certainly Bridge didn't help by going into touch on the subsequent 2nd tackle therefore surrendering the ball to you over a minute earlier than you should have had it. I don't think not taking the 2 pointer was our downfall but it would have run the clock down sufficiently to get to the break, probably, with a 16point lead rather than a 10 point lead.