Warriors coach Shaun Wane admits he made mistakes ahead of last year's semi-final and said of preparations this year.

I've tried to rest players and we've approached our training sessions in a different manner towards the back end of the season because it's a tough old year," he said.

"We've looked after the players a bit better and they were saying they felt really fresh going into the Leeds game.

"Going into the same game last year, they didn't feel fresh. We've fixed that and we can give ourselves a chance of being fresh next week and putting a performance in.

"At the end of the day, we're in two cup finals this year and we were fourth in the competition so it's been fairly good but it will be even better with a win next week."

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To learn from last years mistakes, is all many of us asked for.

2 finals in only 2 years of top level management (Could well be 2 trophies next week as well). Don't think he's done a bad job at all so far!

Deffo learned lessons from last year. We went balls out to win every game and fizzled out at the end of the season. We've rested players at the right times and look sharp when we need to be. Hats off to SW, he's gotta be a shoe in for coach of the year.

Wane had a big smile on his face before the U19's final today at Leeds and an even bigger one at the end of the game. He's going to have to make some interesting decisions in the next two or three years because there is so much talent in those young players.

I think that Paul Anderson will get that without a doubt. (I'm a Wire fan).

SW has done very well this year and credit goes to the club for not going for an Ozzie when Maguire left.
This year I think he's changed the way the team has played and brought on some fantastic young talent.

Really looking forward to the final - and the battle of the forwards.
Yours were really impressive last night.

A good coach learns from his mistakes and Wane keeps on doing that. He has had a fabulous season whatever happens next week. Some people said we won the CC due to an easy draw and questioned our credentials and we've answered those.

He is the best man for this job by a mile. He will bring these exceptional kids through and make them stars.

Problem is that why did it take him a season to realize that players need resting and going 100 miles per hour every game is not worth the LLS you get.

Wane was assistant to Maguire when we won the CC in 2011 and the players were flat after it. Takes a massive man to admit he is wrong. Just as i must admit when i questioned Wane as a coach over the last 2 months i got it wrong.

What did i learn from this year:

LLS is meaningless and winning every game is not worth the effort. Winning every game you have to is.

It's just makes buying a season ticket pointless. Have a fantastic first half of the season, guarenteeing a top 4 finish, then put the cue on the rack until the playoffs. Not Wane's fault though. Just shows how short-sighted and poor the RFL are.

Perhaps he'll do it differently again next year.
Maybe his squad rotation will involve more players.
From his squad list in November he lost Hock who never played a game and Prescott who played the one game. Lauaki only played 7 or 8 games too.
Replace those three by men who will be available most of the season together with the quality younger players and he'll have a good mix of a squad with more available for first team selection.

One thing is for sure, there's plenty more kids hammering at the door for chances so the squad will still have good depth next year. Looking at the 19's GF today you've got the lads who have had an opportunity like Hampshire, Manfredi and Williams who'll want and get more but also lads who have yet to make their first team bow. I thought Rob Lever looked ready for a shot today, Taylor the centre looked strong and a couple of the props as well. Add in Connor Farrell who didn't play and its really exciting.

Wane needs to keep rotating for the good of these lads.

The great thing is that Wane will and he'll do it intelligently, the future is very bright indeed

SW received some quite ridiculous stick last season. Yes the players may have been knackerred against Leeds last season but without Sam and MMc they still only lost by one point - in the last minute. Few people agreed with me last year that luck played a big part. With better luck we'd have won it. This year four things stand out for me

1. Our luck has changed. The Challenge Cup draw says it all really, beating Widnes, London and Hull. If we'd had that draw last year, we'd have won it then

2. A kicking game. Tommy and Finch were poor in that game against Leeds, as they were all season, in the kicking department. Matty Smith has been outstanding. A real big game player. in 2010 he was Saints best player in the GF; their loss.

3. SW played more players than any other team in Super League. The youngsters have had plenty of game time. No-one will be overawed next week even without Lockers.

4. He learnt that Super League doesn't reward coming first and did something about it. The week after we won the Cup playing a full reserve team for example meant all the players were fresh at Huddersfield in the first playoff


I'm absolutely made-up for him.

and fair play to those of you man enough to admit that you were wrong about him.

In retrospect, there were several extenuating factors last season with regard to our failure to win silverware. The serious and ill-timed injury to Tommy Leuluai was a big blow from which we didn't recover easily. We also had two key players in Finch and Lima who patently weren't interested once they'd decided they were going home.

That doesn't exonerate SW entirely, but as others have said - the play-off defeat was pretty damn close affair. Had we got the rub of the green in that game, it could have changed everything.

I was more concerned about SW this season when we suddenly lost all form mid-way through the campaign. There just didn't seem to be any arresting it. It was difficult not to feel despondent. The turn-around in the play-offs was quite amazing, and SW deserves nothing but massive credit.

Of course - when you go on a losing streak, it's inevitable the fans will get jumpy. But I totally agree that SW was subjected to some quite ridiculous criticism. The business about him making ill-judged comments to interviewers was bollox frankly - unimportant in the great sweep of things, and nothing more than an excuse to slag the guy off. The likes of Tony Smith and Nathan Brown have pretty poor records on the box, yet we don't hear their heads being called for in response. Other stories - about SW having lost the dressing room, for example - were simply lies.

Running the Wigan first team was SW's first major gig, so there were bound to be things that needed ironing out, and yet and at no stage under his command have we been anywhere other than near the top or getting close to finals. Okay, 'near' and 'getting close' aren't perhaps good enough for Wigan, but many other clubs would take it, and anyway, this year we've improved yet again.

If we win the Grand Final I can see SW's position at Wigan being secure for a very long time.

The most pleasing thing for me is that SW seems to have learnt a lot from his first season mistakes, which as you say was his first season in a Super League coaching role, which some of his critics failed to recognise/acknowledge/appreciate.

Flogging the players to win the LLS and picking Jack Murphy against Leeds when he had only appeared twice before were major errors.

This year he has used more players than any other coach so that if we need them players are better able to step in, and first teamers are fresher (eg MMc). And strangely given Leeds record from the last two years whilst we looked pretty fresh at the end of the game, Leeds players were out on their feet. I watched the game on Sky after I had got home from the ground and I couldn't believe the constant reference to Leeds players being knackerred. Yet Wigan played more games than Leeds all season. If Watkins &JJB were injured then play someone else, because SW would have done.

Agreed about his dealings with the media. I think he has made great efforts to improve. But his passion for the club always shines through. I think that is a great thing. My ONLY criticism of Madge was that he was about as interesting as watching a game of Union!