I think it's far too early to say the wheel has come off at Wire, but to drop several places in one day is a blow to morale and shows that your previous position was a bit false.

It will be interesting to see how well Smith handles this minor crisis, as normally, losing the occasional game seems to send him into a personality change.

Smith's teams seemed to have run out of gas in the past after promising starts but I think Wire have enough class to hold it together.

They'll need to make tough calls at the end of the year though. Guys like Hodgson, Briers and Morley can't play on forever and leaving it too long to say goodbye could hurt them for years.

Odd... You get "Wire wheels" on old vehicles.... Coincidence?

I know that's why I'm still seething! Watching their capitulation against Stains the week after just made it worse. The signs were there against us that they might be heading into a rocky spell. We were just too boneheaded on the night to take advantage

Agreed....I think most Wire fans acknowledge we stole that one.

As for our present situation, I think the main worry is that we don't seem to be rectifying obvious faults from previous week's performances.....I'd also accept that certain players are beginning to look a little 'old', though that can easily change with a 3 or 4 match winning run.

Personally, I think a major worry is that we (the fans) seem happy to do things the Leeds way of being awful for most of the year, then coming good come play-off time......I really believe that last year was a bit of a one-off, history tells us that more often than not, the play-off winners will come from the top 2, so I think its pretty crucial to get yourself into one of those positions come season's end.

Briers?
Bridge?
Myler?

We were negative. Above the errors, brain farts and penalty give aways us keep going for 2 points when we had them on the back foot killed us.

Lessons were learnt at Saints though and that's all we can ask.

They always seem to be on the ball for the Wigan games, due to the amount of Wiganers associated with the team and club, the fact that they have traditionally been the 2nd best derby for us and the sheer dislike of Wigan from the likes of Cullen, Murphy and Briers over the years. Note their poor record in the games played immediately after facing Wigan. I'm surprised that a coach as educated as Smith hasn't killed this small club mentality off.

Point proven.

we dominated Wire in our last game except for where it counts. They hung in and took their chances. they are a good side, but they will have to improve if they are to take on us, Leeds, Saints and Cats come the end of the season, personally do not think they have what it takes.

Our results aren't down to fitness or old players waning form, it's the whole team playing suicide rugby, not respecting the ball and throwing impossible offloads at every given opportunity. Plus although we are not the most penalised team i'd say we are giving away the most on the 4th and 5th tackle.

Against Saints we had 2 completed sets in the first half, we have made more errors than any other team, 37 more than the next worse team [Widnes].

We are still a strong side but a side that for some reason is seriously disjointed and trying to play crazy rugby that just isn't working.

today it looked as if you was willing to go set for set with catalan and got beat for it. i think the problem is last season wire had such an energy about them and strong bond your team is finding it hard to replicate that and are trying to force it. last year really was wires year but blew it in the playoffs and some of your players seem to be struggling with it.

every time warrington play wigan they raise up 5 levels thats why they win and allways struggle directly afterwards.

You thought we raised up 5 levels this time around?

We've played at the same level all season probably bar Giants, in which we definitely out muscled them.

The level we are playing at is good enough to beat some teams and not others, if you go back to some of my posts on this board i said Wigan were the better team v Wire.

Like most Wigan fans i don't know how we won that, it papered very briefly over the cracks.

We are capable of a good performance and had glimmers, Saints 2nd half being one.
The trouble at the moment is simply we are beating ourselves and probably being guilty of being a little bit arrogant and thinking we'll be able to beat teams without putting the hard graft in.

i know i remember reading it and being surprised when you even said it on your own board .

but i still think you played one of your better games this season against us even if we was both not so good on the day.

shockingly i don't think it is arogance (never thought i would say this about warrington) i just think the team is trying to hard and its all being forced and its costing in mistakes. i think to many of your players are guilty of thinking about last season and are trying to put 50 on teams with out winning the battle.

also no doubt about it your older players arn't playing aswell this season, i really do think last season was wire year but it never happend.

Well i don't think neither of us will change our opinions on the Wigan/Wire game, and when Harrison and Big Dave are back in contention we can start dropping out of form forwards

Carvell has been gash this year, Wood a penalty and brainfart liability, Morley isn't his old self yet still better than the majority of props out there, Westwood can't do it all himself even if he tries to, Waterhouse is a bit flat, Hill isn't doing anything wrong and has been dependable but nothing flash, Grix is out of sorts, Cooper (see Hill).

M.Monaghan was our driving force last year but he had an op pre season and to be fair looks like he was rushed back, i think TS actually realised this and dropped him again. Thankfully, and almost unbelievably, Higham has been playing really well, in fact probably been our 2nd best player so far this season.
Dwyer has played small parts this season and looks like he can do a job.