Seen them given, seen them not. It was a close thing, but the fact that it was on a line on the pitch probably helped with the decision. You'd be a bit cheesed off if that decision had cost the game.

When you get to this stage of the season the matches seem to be more intense, but how much of that is the refs not wanting to give loads of penalties? The 10m was short for both sides and virtually every other tackle in the last 5-10 minutes (from both teams) could have been penalised for messing about. A few more penalties early on would have opened things up

Did you know if a winger can run at 20 mph and slowly throws the ball backwards over his head the ball will have travelled 7 to 8 metres forward before it hits the ground.

You have to feel bad for the officials when so many fans don't understand basic rules

If the ball leaves the players hands travelling in a forward direction it's a forward pass. If it leaves his hand in a backwards direction it's fine.

Anything that happens after that is irrelevant- where it lands or is caught.

I think we got away with one with the 'forward pass' tbh, I think it was going back out of Swift's hands.

Having watched the game again, I'm pretty confident for the playoffs; we should have had that game won comfortably before the last 15. I've seen more than enough from that game that we'll make the GF IMO. Physically we dominated Saints on Friday and that's not happened a lot in the last 18 months. We're in a good place, we should be positive about Friday (however hard that may be!).

I'm the opposite tbh, and a bit worried about the last few games of the season based on what I saw on Friday.

Our drawbacks this season, particularly in big games, have been discipline issues (which have been much better during the 2nd half of the season), not being clinical enough in attack and at times showing poor game management. The latter two issues were particularly prominent on Friday. Our attack doesn't look sharp enough and far too often we'll let a soft try in after a sustained period of pressure up the other end. We rely heavily on scoring off kicks and the sweeping moves are nowhere near as effective as they previously have been. We're also guilty of consistently making wrong decisions in close games. In the last 10 minutes we kicked early in the tackle count when within 10m of Saints' line when it was clear all we had to do was see out our sets and try to force a drop out on the last.

I think we'll make the GF if we get a home PO game; but we'll need to be much more clinical if we are going to win it.

Completely agree. Too much talk about forward passes and/or offsides that weren't or were. For me, we lost it when we failed to maintain pressure on the Saints line near the end. I wouldn't say they were out on their feet, but after so many sets, kicking early in the tackle-count was a big let-off for them.

I don't know whether it's too much of a leap to go from that to saying we need some new midfield commanders, but I totally agree that we seem to get our mid-match decision making wrong at least as much as we get it right. If we win the Grand Final, such concerns may get swept under the carpet, but personally I'll still be concerned that Matty is not the thinking halfback we need.

I agree in terms of we need to be more clinical but most importantly on Friday we physically matched Saints, now I know they didn't have Walmsley but we didn't have our best second rower in Farrell. I am confident if we play with that intensity against any of the 3 sides we will beat them. I have spoken to a fair few Saints fans since Friday and they all think they got away with it. I'm just hoping we were holding back some of our set plays for when the semi finals come round. I think Wigan fans were having the same conversation after Leeds beat us at the DW in 2013 in the Superman theme game. We're ready for the playoffs IMO. I think if Bateman doesn't give that silly penalty away where he picks up Swift over the line, we win. Small margins.

Controversial but I think a Hampshire/Williams partnership would have had the spark to get us over the line during that period of pressure. Smith just doesn't look dangerous enough IMO and as you say he's not exactly excelling in the leader/organiser role either

Re. Bateman, agreed. At the time I was thinking don't touch him, he'd have had to get up and then Bateman could have chucked him over the line.
Small things indeed.

My main worry with us is our play close to the opposition line isn't good enough. We've got players who can score from anywhere on the field but get us in that opposition 20 and we turn in to a rabble. That's a massive concern when it comes to big games because teams scramble that bit harder, concentrate that bit more and that makes it more difficult to score points. You need to be able to grind teams down and score points down their end. I'd guess we're the worst side of the 4 left when it comes to converting possession in the opposition 20.

All teams have got strength and weaknesses. Wigan dictated the speed of the play the ball a lot better, which helped massively in the battle up the middle in terms of yardage for the driving forwards and freedom for the dummy half. That should have been the deciding factor over the 80, really. As it was, you may point to Bowen's failure under the bomb, but he was pretty good throughout the game and any failing by him was, imo, eclipsed by Quinlan being a complete non-entity throughout.
Lockers turned up and had a big day, so its a shame for you didn't capitalise on it as, to be fair, with him missing games and getting on, you don't get to see that every week.

Both teams turned over a lot of possession for whatever reason. That's the main thing both clubs need to work on, but saints also need to sort out imposing them selves on the pace of the game.

And, for what its worth, that was definitely a forward pass from Swift.

Friday just goes down as another game that Saints "somehow" won by hanging in there and not letting go.