What a try that was and wasn't it good to hear Wigan fans appreciation of a fabulous piece of play.

It certainly was.

If I have heard correctly on WiganTV, Mr Wane put Wigans bad start down to the poor atmosphere.

Definitely nothing to do with your pre-match talk was it Shaun? Clearly all down to the poor atmosphere.

He might have a point. Generally speaking, once play starts, the players are usually concentrating so much, they are oblivious to the crowd but at times last night the silence was eerie.

Don't know what's going on this year with the 18th
man.

Great try though from Cats and great appreciation from Wigan fans

He said there are lots of areas that they need to fix and that the atmosphere, the crowd, "lent to a poor start".

So he believes that it contributed to the initial performance, not that the poor start was all down to any one thing.

Many people have indicated their disappointment with the atmosphere at home games this season.

Although games such as Catalan, with virtually no opposition fans present, have the potential to be flat, more effort is needed from the club and the supporters to generate some energy. Whether the new rlWe Are Wiganrl group are the first step to this remains to be seen.

Their first try was great, by the way.

Is it the teams job to get the crowd going or is it the other way round?

IMO there's people being paid to be there and to entertain and the ball lies very much in the players court in terms of getting an atmosphere going by exciting and committed play.

The fans are paying good money to be entertained and will respond accordingly. I don't think Wanes got that comment right tbh.

I think the players are trained to have good structural defences and be able to complete a solid tackle. They have been coached how to do this from an early age and a bit of crowd noise should have no bearing on their abilities. Fact is the players were half asleep.

I agree. He must realise conceding a try after 5 minutes, playing poorly and going on to loose the first half is not going to get the crowd going.

There will be a good atmosphere if the team is seen to be up for it even if tries are conceded but if tries [iare[/i conceded the crowd needs to believe the team are going to apply themselves properly to getting down the other end. Not continue to play like puddings.

The point I was making in my original post was that it was good to hear the Wigan fans applaud a superb try by the opposition, something you would never see at a football match or indeed from some other RL supporters.

Some of our starts have been poor home and away this year. It's not the atmosphere IMO, it's the attitude of some of the players or poor match preparation...

Since they redid the singing section things haven't been the same and I find the atmosphere is always worse when the north stand is closed off.

On another note, what happened to all the flags above the south stand on Friday night?

Also no TVs on in the concourse. Is there something going on behind the scenes ?

Sorry about that Rogues. Liverpool did it a few weeks ago. I think it was against Swansea, and the commentary team mentioned how respectful and knowledgable they were.
To be honest I think shows a lack of respect as it only happens when there is (supposedly) a difference in class.
We wouldn't have been clapping had it been Leeds , Wire , or Saints.
We also wouldn't have clapped if that try was in the 79th minute for them.

I was going to mention Liverpool fans doing it but in another incident against Sunderland in the week. A Sunderland player (Liam Bridcutt) trapped a ball on the touchline but it went up in the air and he produced a lovely bit of skill to keep it in. The whole Liverpool section infront of him burst in to applause and I thought that was really classy of them.

It happens in Cricket all the time as well. It is pretty rare in football but not unknown.

I would. I did for the Saints try last Good Friday after the superb piece of centre play by Jordan Turner that set up Makinsons try.
A great try is a great try no matter who scores it or when it is.