Looking forward to watching this later as a neutral but is this fixture still the biggest one for Wigan fans thesedays?

Some mouthy Wire fans having giving it the big 'un across various forums and Facebook of late saying their games against you is now the biggest in English RL and how they are now your biggest rivals etc.

Wire are irrelevant

Wigan Leigh is a bigger game to Wigan fans than Wigan Wire.... While it's not always an SL fixture, it has far more passion.

BTW, it's always their year..

There've been some good Wigan v Wire games in recent times, but Wire are still on the look-out for their new rivals and they keep getting knocked back.

For example, when Wigan were fighting relegation, Wire were trying to claim that they were Saints' new rivals - and the Saints fans weren't having it.

Wire have never really recovered from the loss of Widnes as a major force, so it's not all their own fault and I don't blame them for being peeved. It's often the case that you can estimate someone's quality from the quality of their foes.

I think we've a very good chance of beating Saints. Leeds ran them close and with more thought could have won. Ferres puts the ball down nearer the posts when scoring Leeds would have won.
They stopped Barba by kicking into touch end of sets instead of allowing him to run at them.
That's one thing we could do to slow them down.
Leeds also lost by not taking the 2. When Sam does this we usually lose, when he takes the 2 we win.
I'm sure Waney has the right tactics and he will certainly have them fired up.

I think that’s a decent starting XIII to be honest.

In that formation saints would just kick bombs to the left edge and we would all cringe.

I’d be happy to see us copy that tactic but doubt we will. Wane is huge on keeping the ball in play to try and help us gain an advantage from what he views as our superior fitness on a lot of other sides at the back end. I’ve heard plenty of talk from players over recent years of us giving cheap possession and field position to the opppsition by accidentally kicking dead.

I just can’t see that Wane will rip that up even to combat Barba.

Barba having a late test on his ribs, I am not convinced he will play

Confirmed no Barba or Percival, Sarge and Bateman both play for us.

No place in the 17 for Escare. I wonder how / where he sees his future?

Truth is, whilst he’s a decent player, he’s our back up full back. Our first choice full back is fit and playing great rugby so I have no issues with it.

Same as so far, loads of effort, same predictable plays that Saints are seeing way too easily.

We’ve too many bang average players. Powell, tautai, Sarginson, ISA, Flower, Clubb for starters

We are getting well beaten in the forwards. Unless they turn it around and get on top of the Saints pack we aren't going to get much out if this game.

Being bullied in defence and attack. Luke Thompson for Saints is a shining example of where our props should be. Powell hasn’t a creative bone in his bloody body.