What Smithies has got rid of this season which used to infuriate me about him was the soft penalties he was giving away, the hand on the ball or the ankle grab, he's a much better player for it, he's probably going to get a couple of games for the high shot but we should be lauding him for that off-load in very heavy traffic, brilliant piece of play

Smithies has gone to a different level this year.

What he was doing as a 18 year old rookie in 2019was amazing but he stagnated in the 2 years since (he admitted this himself).

This year his tackles and carries have much more impact and he comfortably wrestled the loose forward role away from Isa.

With regards high shots, if you are playing 80 minutes in the middle of the field in and intense game and making 61 tackles you’d bound to get the odd one wrong. He’s improved his discipline this year.


I genuinely can’t remember him ever offloading but that one on Saturday is one to remember. Would be a nice additional to his game if he can do it more consistently.

A nice little read of Redvee and boy was it worth it.

According to the sad one we are still “horrendous”

They still can’t get they head round the fact sooper doooper “best team of all time” got smoked by us in the semi.

Its really funny.

And we’re just getting going with this coaching staff.

My favourite quote is "Was there a game this weekend?". They really are an embarrassment

There was if you were good enough to get through to the final

Banging on about Smithies but no mention of Yates who's also been banned, strong is the bitterness over there, personally I'll be very disappointed if they beat us again this season, the most one dimensional team in the league

How good does it feel to just think how sick some of those guys on Red Vee would’ve been as Marshall caught that ball? Imagine their faces and their reactions. It’s a feeling you’d love to bottle. Simply Lovely!

It was an amazing way to win a final. I wouldn’t be against a comfortable afternoon instead but you don’t get many moments like that Marshall try in Rugby League. Absolute chaos in that Wigan end!

Great wasn't it. I ended up hugging a random guy and his son who were sat next to me. Funnily enough he had one of the old blue and white, long sleeve shirts that got done via this site (think it was Pemps who did them). Pandemonium in the end with beer flying around.

I was sat next to a guy watching his first RL game (was a Tottenham regular so decided to pop down). He left after 75 minutes. He'd surely have been converted to the sport for life being in the Wigan end if he stayed a few more minutes.

No idea how to upload an image on here but the picture of the chairman lifting the cup on the challenge cup twitter page is a good un. Chuffed for you Ian - congrats!

I have a good one,a friend (I call him a friend after the semi he prob wont call me that).
Him being a Stains fan went to London not to the game but to Harry Potter land and on his way back yesterday he pulled into a service station having some food with his misses and kid when walked in Halsall,he knows him so said hello and then the rest of the team walked in my "friend" said you couldnt make it up he has had a crap weekend and then the warriors walked in.his words .Halsall didnt let on that he was a St Helens fan .

I'm quite enjoying the meltdown from other fans about Smithies, Hudds being the better side, us being lucky etc.

All lends itself to reminding us that Wigan are back.

Yup. It defies any reason which is a great indicator that we're on the right tracks.

In no way, shape or form were Hudds the better team on the day.

I thought they were but not through playing particularly well but more because we just didn’t perform at all in terms of our basics with the ball. They’ve had a lot of praise Huddersfield and I get it but they were so safety first and it ending up costing them. Watching the replay you would think we were scrambling all day long but we defended our stupid errors quite comfortably most of the time. Huddersfield were very workmanlike but I get the feeling if they could play the game again, they’d try and chance their arm a bit more. Turning the ball over on our line twice in that last 10 minutes, without even looking like they were thinking of scoring was something I think a Wigan or Saints would be getting heat for.

Oh they executed a very simple game plan, very well. Does that make them the better side tho?

Two crash over tries (well executed they may be) Vs us scoring two fantastic ones, or their lack of line breaks Vs 4/5 for us (in one half alone).

I think Cruncher pointed out that our match winning play had been tried a couple of times before. When it doesn't come off, then it's an error, but when it does come off - it's a match winning play etc. Fine lines and all depends on which way you wanna look at it.

Ultimately, one team went for it and tried to work the ball - yeah they coughed up possession off the back of it, but that's what won us the game in the end.

I think there is a difference between "should have won" and "deserved to win". In my eyes, Huddersfield fall into the former. With the possession and territory they enjoyed they should have won. But their safety-first tactics held them back a little and prevented them from really forcing their advantage home when they had it. In terms of "deserved to win", I'd say I would have no complaints as a Wigan fan if they had won, but they didn't do enough to definitively be the better side. As I say, the old adage that "you have to lose one to win one" looks like it suits Huddersfield here. This was their loss, we will have to see if they can bounce back, learn from this, get to another one and win it next time.

Lance Todd Trophy voting






Chris McQueen, 14
Ricky Leutele, 9
Oliver Russell, 6
Tui Lolohea, 5
Jermaine McGillvary, 2
Harry Smith, 2
Daniel Levi, 1

Votes have to be cast by the 75th minute but even so........................

I still think it makes them the better side but were they hugely impressive? I felt not and was saying that to our group walking back to the coaches. You can’t play not to lose and they did that late on. I can’t really blame them being conservative throughout the game, as they probably just thought they could wait for our next implosion in our twenty. I think the long and short of it is that had we turned up and played to our best and Huddersfield play as they did, we’d have won pretty comfortably but it wasn’t to be. Our errors and our execution of those plays you mention were way off but we still get the win. I’m confident that it actually bodes pretty well for us going forward.

Reading some of the journos on Twitter over the weekend, such as Aaron Bower and John Davidson, it’s little surprise the vote went like that. A great occasion and as per, the journalists in this country are pure doom and gloom and focus on how Smithies not getting binned costs Huddersfield the game. Neutral these guys are not! Positive about anything involving rugby league? Never. You wouldn’t think they earned their livings from the game, considering how often they stick the knife in.

I can get onboard with that.

Kinda highlights the difficulties when fans say they "want to be entertained" too. I know I'm playing both sides of the argument here, but previously I've been happy to watch us do what Hudds did (just better) i.e low risk, conservative rugby. I do think that, if you play that style, you need to score more points. Under Madge, we'd do something similar but score plenty of points too.

Bower works extremely hard to keep his dislike of Wigan from surfacing, but sometimes he can't help himself.

The daft part of Saturday were the errors in our twenty weren’t about chancing our arm and coming unstuck. They were just concentration lapses. The Cust kick in our 30 metres just before half time was a brain fade. We’re all wanting to see us play attacking rugby but that just wasn’t the time or place. That’s what excites me really, we fix up those silly errors and pick out moments better and we’ll be in any game due to the attacking talent we have and the pace we posses. It was a 5 or 6 on 10 performance I thought and we still got the win.

I know it happens every week but picking a man of the match before the match is over is very strange.

The match is 80 minutes.

3 class involvements in 3 tries deserved more than a couple of votes.

RL media mustn’t like us, Ratchford got in in 2018 GF.

He does indeed. John Davidson doesn’t hide it at all and then a guy like Richard Shaw-Wright makes you want to give up on life, let alone Rugby League. I don’t mind Phil Caplin tbh. He’s open and honest about loving Leeds but he tries to be balanced and tries to focus on the positives. I don’t know why some of them don’t go and get another job. A good mate of mine was in the same game until about 12-18 months ago and he’d maybe been ground down by the negatives and you wouldn’t get much positive out of him. Fair play to him, he walked away and got a new job. Banging the drum for everything negative about rugby league must be tiresome sometimes for these guys.

Phil is so bitter about Wigan’s dominance in the 80/90s not one week goes past where he doesn’t mention us having to sell Central Park to fund it all.