What a difference 5wks makes eh?

I thought Powell and Clubb were brilliant tonight, can’t find fault with their performances recently and making some of our, mine included, comments on here look a little silly. Long may it continue.

Williams was outstanding as was Marshall who repeatedly proves he is a born try scorer at any level.

Notwithstanding the fantastic set up for Hardaker’s try I didn’t see what Sammut had to offer last night.

We’ve gone from unlikely relegation contenders to unlikely Super League winners in 5weeks. It really is quite remarkable considering we were debating whether finishing 6th/7th would be called a “good season” when you balance it up against a poor start.

I still feel the real test of how far we’ve come and improved will be v Saints on 12th July. I can’t say I expect a win but equally I wouldn’t have said 5wks ago that we’d be sitting in 4th before the end of June.

As for Lam, I’m still not 100% convinced but he’s certainly doing no harm to his credentials at the moment.

We go again!

A good win last night. I thought that we did well to weather an early storm when Salford were making easy meters and we were scrambling from the off. we took a while to start going forward and that was largely through the backs. Hankinson had some sound relieving carries and the backs seemed a bit more coherent. Perhaps it was the warm temperature but both teams looked a bit lethargic. Our forwards are still not making much in the form of post contact meters and on the edge we were looking for a man to give an option whilst the ball carrier ran down some blind alleys. When Sammut came on we tightened up and started to look more cohesive.
The funniest moment of the game was the interception. Was that really the player who went 80 meters for Leeds just a few weeks ago, or am I mistaken?

Catalans at home aside, that was probably the best performance of the season so far. Defensively very solid for the most part and more variation in attack. The right side has, over the last 2 games, started to look like it has points in it (although this seems to have taken away from the left so there's a conundrum that needs sorting!) and team spirit has improved massively from earlier in the season.

Given we were still missing Flower, Farrel, O'loughlin from the 2nd minute and the long term injuries/gone and were playing a lot of high squad numbers I thought we looked sharp and focused. Tired towards the end but that was to be expected really.

Not quite the 80 minute performance we are all looking for but certainly a satisfying one and a positive move in the right direction. Not unreasonable to say there still seems a lot of improvement in this team too. Good signs.

It was Inu that made the break he is descriptively slow looking at him and Lolohea they are in poor shape for professional players. i cant believe that he went in for that try for Leeds

I thought Powell was our best player and Partington looks a little better but I don't agree with several posters re Clubb who probably made one run where he seemed determined to break the line his remaining runs were again for me slow and lacklustre.

I cannot see Lam starting with Sammut as he wont drop TL or Powell to allow Sammutt to start.

I thought Salford were appalling with the number of mistakes they made and if I'm totally honest although we are playing better to think that we are 4th in the league sums up the poor general quality of the competition.

Am I correct in thinking that ZH took one of the conversions last night? If so why did he do so?

Some negative people on here. Cheer up!

Look at it this way we are 4 and have not hit any form. We didn’t play that well last year until towards the end of the season.

Hardaker took the kick as Hankinson took a knock and was having treatment.

Go have a drink enjoy the sun and enjoy being 4th

I was wondering whether the plan is now to have Zak kick on the left side of the field and Hankinson on the right.

NO, as said above Hanky was gettting treatment at the time of said kick, He still kicked 4 from 5 iirc

That was never Inu. Someone must have sneaked a cardboard cut out of him onto the pitch instead .

Sadly I completely agree with that. With the exception of Saints the general quality is poor. Even some of London’s high scoring but high conceding wins are generally poor.

That's super duper league for you, but then you will get the salary as levelled the playing field brigrade

Don't think it's negative Azza just an opinion as I see it.
I'm not really a stats type but the completion rate for Salford must be embarrassing for a full time professional outfit.

The number of unforced errors by most teams is almost comical. A good team would have whipped that Salford performance with a score considerably higher than 28.

Happy with the win but seriously if that was a performance to start people thinking of of GF aspirations that I need to start smoking something a bit strong

I agree that on a warm, dry evening - in perfect conditions in fact - the lack of core skills on show from both Wigan and Salford was dire.

This is very much the story across SL, with the exception of Saints. Every fixture is littered with basic errors from start to finish. Professional wages are being paid for semi-amateur standards.

To me, the blame goes three ways:

1) The players either aren't good enough or aren't professional enough to focus on their job. Ryan Sutton is a classic example, the guy showing bags more quality when faced with a situation of 'get fitter and perform better or face deselection'.

2) The coaches are mostly lacking. Shaun Wane was by far the best coach in the UK to get what he did out of that Wigan team. But there were areas where he too was weak, e.g in terms of playing exciting rugby, crowds dwindling as a result. That said, there wasn't another coach in SL I'd have happily traded for Wane.

3) The RFL's all-round incompetence has been documented many times, but their biggest crime was allowing British RL to become a poor man's game, failing to fund it adequately, thus ensuring that we get third pick of all involved, players, coaches etc ... after the NRL and more embarrassing still, after RU.

The scary thing is, people are saying (rightly) that this is an improvement on our early-season displays. This! I remember thinking during the game, I don't know how we are winning this so comfortably, there's not much between the teams. And there wasn't. But a couple of tidy finishes from Marshy, and a kick from GW that looked too big for all money in real time, but nevertheless held up just in time, and suddenly the points start to rack up. Especially if you turn 4 into 6, as we usually doo these days.

And I would argue that our defence is still not that good. Regardless of what stats say, there are big holes appearing at times, which a better side than Salford would exploit. I would argue that our defence is not *back* to Wane standard, by some distance.

I haven’t seen anybody say anything like we’re bang on form in either in attack or defence. The fact is we’ve won 4 out of 4 and bigger picture we’ve won 7 out of 9. Our form has significantly turned and i’d argue we’re getting better week after week. We’re playing without 3 of what would have been our top 4 props at the start of the season in Flower, Hamlin and Tautai and I think it’s time we have them a bit of credit.
We’re up to 4th and people on here are acting like we’re in the same boat as Leeds! Just accept it for what it is. It’s a transitional season that started horrendously. We’ve had more off field issues and disruption than we could ever have imagined but the club has turned it around. We know Saints are the benchmark but they were in the same boat last year and look what happened. We’re in the top 4 and we’ve not hit top form yet. If we do, somebody is in for a real thumping.