Fair enough - agree to disagree on that as I thought there was a gulf between the packs and has been most of the time in recent matches.

Certainly Paasi's best game of the season. Makinson has been great all year but probably his best in terms of stats. Can't say Roby was any better or worse than his usual standard this or any other year, to maintain the level of performance at his age is phenomenal.

I don't know how you can dress the forward packs up as anything but an enormous mis-match. Some of the stats from the Wigan bench are embarrassing.

Agree to disagree, as you say. On the terraces, Paasi aside, I wasn't worried about you up the middle. That's not usually the case. Out wide was where the threat was.

But the game isn’t just about being able to hang in there tackling on the back foot. The Wigan pack couldn’t take the game to Saints at all after the first ten minutes or so - they were completely ineffectual.

Most of your forwards might as well not be on the pitch when you’re in possession.

Because the 2nd row was ineffectual. I understand your point but if Farrell and Bateman were putting in their usual 100+ metres and carrying an attacking threat then the pack does it's job. Havard aside, there is never big metres from the front row. It's largely a defensive unit and I think they did that job well.

I was very surprised in how big the miss match was

Fair enough If you think Farrell or Bateman (or KPP when playing in the pack) may as well not be on the pitch in attack. I disagree. If by pack you mean front row then you have a more legitimate point. However, despite the awful pass to a Saints player, Havard made the best break of any front rower on the pitch and so far this season (although admittedly not yesterday) Mago has been one of our best attacking options and has created many breaks and tries with his offloads so again I can't fully agree. I'm not saying you weren't better in the forwards...you were.

When Saints fans analyse our forwards lack of ground against them and how poor they are, I think they forgot one vital thing that is actually them not giving their own side enough credit- ‘nobody makes ground through the middle against Saints’. I’m yet to see any pack of forwards have joy against them this season because their defence just smothers any side. Each and every side they’ve played comes out of it with some pretty horrific statistics and full credit to Saints for that.

There’s nothing wrong with our young forwards, with Singleton, Mago etc in pretty much any other game in superleague but they, like the rest of the forward packs in the league can’t get over them. We put maximum effort in yesterday and matched them pretty well for half an hour but then they raised the bar and we faded. It’s a fabulous lesson for Smithies (who I thought played well again), Byrne, Havard etc about just where they’ll need to get to if they want to be in the side that troubles this Saints lot.

They're also missing the point that their forwards do it off the back of a good yardage platform from their backs. They didn't make many yards in that first period when we were more successful at pegging them back in their own end zone. It's easier to make yards from outside your own 20 and the Saints backs got them that platform in the early carries. Ours didn't.

I'm not saying our pack was (or is) as good. It isn't. But neither did they get "rolled" as FTV puts it. We were second best all over the park but the main difference was in the backs.

They’re an excellent ‘team’. I said yesterday coming away from the game that I’ve seen loads of teams over my time watching the sport with a better group of players but I can’t recall seeing any group play as well as a team. The league is such a poor standard outside of Saints and that helps them, of course it does, but I can’t help but praise how well drilled they are. The backs help the forwards, the forwards help the backs and the halves could play in their suits.

Watching it back now though and interestingly enough Brown says differently in commentary. He even makes reference to Saints fitness levels citing Lees as an example of his kick pressure and running as hard at the end of the game as at minute one.

I'm not sure how that contradicts what I'm saying Stu. Is he saying your backs don't set a good platform? Is that what you're saying?

thats the key for me more that anything, we are no where near fit enough and saints have been super fit for years so are now seasoned

they dont need to as their forwards roll on due to their fitness levels, we need the backs to do it to give the forwards a breather

Apologies no, he’s saying that our pack dominated. So whilst he didn’t use the term “rolled” he said there was a big difference which kind of goes against what you were saying.

I mentioned our fitness levels earlier and was derided for doing so (not by you) yet Brown makes the exact same point.