We just lose the big games!

We've been saying for a while that our play-off performances have flattered to deceive. We've done well in the play-offs; there's no doubt about that. But we've always had to go a bridge too far because this form was absent earlier in the season. Thus when the big jobs needed to be done, we were too drained.

Surely there can't be any argument now that early-season form is vital? In recent years we've spent far too much time early and mid-season farting around at the lower end of the table, leaving ourselves a mountain to climb as the business end approached.

This is something the new guy can hopefully put right. I sincerely hope that we never again hear this nonsense about "it's not how we play now that matters, but how we play in August and September". To me that was nothing more than blatant excuse-making, and it amazes me that some fans actually seemed to buy into it.

Another thing MM should concentrate on is our mental resiliance. No SL team should go into a fixture thinking "we're definitely going to lose today - it's a foregone conclusion", but that's what happened with Wigan during numerous trips to Knowsley Road, Cardiff, etc. Likewise, no team should go into a CC semi-final thinking "we'll win this easily because the opposition is pants", but that's what Wigan did against both Catalan and Warrington. If the opposition genuinly is pants, you should muller them. If they're pants but trying hard, you should still have enough to beat them. If they're good, you should give them a very hard game. If they're excellent, you should try your damndest and, at the worst, give them a real scare. That's the way Wigan always used to do it, because their head was nearly always in the right place. Hopefully MM can reintroduce this thought process, because under Nobby it was sadly lacking.

Couldnt put it better myself, this goes for every Professional sports team, the great teams that are 30-0 up at half time will go on to win 60-0, not 30-28 for example. we need to put the boot in, hopefully under Mr Mcguire we can do this

This is true and shows we have to played more games per play off series compared to some teams because as we know we have rarely been in a position to earn a week off or go directly to the final.

When we won in 98 under the old top 5 system the team finishing top only needed to play two matches including the final to lift the trophy. A team finishing 5th would have to play 4 to do that and all away from home.

Dave