You could be right, but culture is a difficult thing to measure, unless you start doing the corporate thing and asking everyone do they like it here etc etc (sorry i work in an organisation where we get these twice a year

), and then that way you could compare how the staff feel playing for wigan v saints etc

however, there is something in your point and what i was sort of alluding to / trying to get to in my earlier post. When i look at Leeds and Saints, there doesnt seem to be a clamour to leave and play in Oz / RU. yes, both clubs have lost the odd player, but in the main have managed to retain a consistent squad / balanced squad with homegrown and planned overseas players (and i know you dont always get it right, but that applies to every club).

So what are Saints now & Leeds previously, doing differently to Wigan at this moment in time? We seem to have it year on year, where a player (s) want to test their hands in Oz. At the end of the day we all have the same salary cap to play with, so all clubs have the same challenges of balancing overseas and young player promotion etc.

This year we've lost Jackson Hastings and Oliver Gildart.
Last year Sean Oloughlin.
Year before George Williams
Year before that Sam Tomkins and John Bateman
Year before that Mike McIlorum and Joel Tomkins (albeit disciplinary)
Year before that lost Josh Charnley and Dan Sarginson
Year before that Joe Burgess and Scott Taylor

That is essentially your spine that has gone in Tomkins, Williams, McIlorum and Lockers + now a 36? Year old Leuluai who would be 37 if he goes round again. It is the heart beat of the team.

By comparison the only top talent Saints have lost in that time has been Luke Thompson.

Why do so many players seem to want to leave Wigan, but not St.Helens?

The decade has been and gone much faster than you might have thought……

In SuperLeague there’s now clear daylight between Saints and Leeds/Wigan over the last decade. The last 10 seasons (lifted straight off “a.n.other” forum…)

2012 LLS Wigan GF Champions Leeds

2013 LLS Huddersfield GF Champions Wigan

2014 LLS Saints GF Champions Saints

2015 LLS Leeds GF Champions Leeds

2016 LLS Wire GF Champions Wigan

2017 LLS Castleford GF Champions Leeds

2018 LLS Saints GF Champions Wigan

2019 LLS Saints GF Champions Saints

2020 LLS Wigan GF Champions Saints

2021 LLS Catalans GF Champions Saints

Sport is cyclical, but Leeds dominance wasn’t really in the last decade it was 2007-11, however their treble in 15 was a fantastic achievement.


The comp needs a strong Wigan and Leeds otherwise it’s a race to the bottom. I expect a resurgence in effort this season from Wigan but it’s a period of rebuilding and getting rid of the dead wood in my opinion.

That may be so, but the fact remains that unlike St Helens, we do not have the right blend of Academy players and better class experienced players from within our own game and down under.

Hence, the lack of success of the last three seasons or so!

No matter who leaves at St Helens, they somehow always seemed to find a decent replacement.

Yes we do. They've all been injured.

At one stage this season I think we were missing our entire 1-7 in squad numbers amd have had our first choice SRs in the centres.

Let me know how you think they'd get on missing Coote, Makinson, Percival, Grace and Fages. Then take Batchelor and Matuatia out the pack and play them centre and Knowles is also out injured.

I'll give you a clue how I think they'd get on.....every weak team they have played has lost.

They are an exceptional side there is no doubting that, but they have also had the luxury of their best players being fit for long periods. I'd be very interested to see in the last 3 years how many combined games their 1-13 has played and how many ours has played.

I'm not saying we would beat them BTW but we'd have a far better chance than some of the sides we've turned up with. On GF 2019 for example we had our 3rd choice SH playing and even he went off injured.

Put this into context slightly...look at Liverpool over the last 3 seasons.

2019 - played thier best players most weeks, won the CL unlucky not to win the league lost 1 game.
2020 - played their best players most weeks, won the league losing 1 game.
2021 - VVD was injured for long periods and they had midfielders at centre back. Lost 7 in a row at home.

They still finished 3rd as they have a better squad than most and I think Saints would probably be heavy favourites come the playoffs with all their big guns back, but I don't believe their squad/recruitment is majorly better than ours is.

Their injury record is
Ability to keep their best players / spine / settled squad
Ability to blend in youth on their terms (mostly) rather than being forced to

I'm not sure how they keep their best players, that also helps yes but only if they stay fit. Perhaps they've been lucky in signing players like SOL who never went to the NRL or Kris Radlinski. Maybe Walmsley (or his wife) are homebirds and don't want the lifestyle. We have a group of talented young lads who can all up sticks at their age as they have no settled family life. Signing Walmsley is no good though if he spends the next 2 seasons in the stands.

Their injury record allows them to blend the youth players in. I highly doubt we wanted Smith to play every game this season and be our lead SH but we had no choice. Similarly, KPP probably wasn't supposed to play as many games as he did but with all our back row either injured or in the centres we had no choice.

A coach who insisted on putting round pegs in square holes also hasn't helped us get the best from our squad.

Again though...how much is that 'luck' or is it good management? The rate we pick up injuries at wigan is another huge issue, which cant be ascribed to luck. The Saints 13 vs our 13 would be an interesting comparison, but more interesting would be comparing now with our injury levels in the Bitcon days IMO.

Lets hope this new guy...Head of Analysis, Jack Phillips is as good as they say he is as an industry leader in analytics. This is exactly the type of data he should be looking at to establish what is going wrong and why and how we can put it right. Although, anecdotally, I have a fair idea what the results would show in terms of changes to our conditioning regime and level of performance and injuries on field.

We have lost the cutting edge not only because of our failure to retain the best players, but also because our player conditioning isn't anywhere near our rivals. Its why they are often puffing in the second half, don't have energy for creative plays or do the basics (such as support the ball carrier). IMO is also a huge factor in our 'unlucky' levels of injuries.

You put bitcon back or someone of similar ilk to condition our players and we'd also be a different proposition

I don't think our fitness has ever been an issue in terms of playing the full 80, but yes we need to look at the injuries issue but we have apparently played at least 2 players before we should have done.

Have to say, that whole "Shucks, we got it wrong, it was probably mostly our fault" thing about both Burgess and French always seemed dubious to me.