You can't buy trophies. It takes a lot more than money, that's just one piece of the jigsaw, an important one granted. At Leeds proved at that time it takes more.

Succession planning was key, Hanley is the prime example. Wigan sold him when he was heading towards the end of his career, Phil Clarke was ready to step up to the #13 shirt. We had a significant number of players who came through our academy supplemented with a few proven stars and a few unknowns our coaching made good and a few Australians ans New Zealanders.

The biggest influence in my opinion was the coaching starting with Graham Lowe who layer the platform for what was to come.

Well, I reckon Joel Moon is a terrific player, one of the best NRL imports in recent times. And he's an Aussie, although he came from the NZ Warriors.

Anyway, I'll be coming up for the Leeds game, my first SL match of this season; looking forward to a cracking contest!

Just a side note on tomorrows game- if Wigan win it will be 25 home Super League victories in a row.

No one can deny that is impressive.

It would be a poor world without differing opinions.
Have a good journey up tomorrow

By modern superleague standards at centre Moon is a pretty good one but in the grand scheme of things he's not all that. He does a couple of flashy eye catching things but Hall isn't exactly being given 5 chances a game to finish by Moon.

Dare I say it but I think both Leeds centres are overrated. Imagine the trys and assists centres like Gary Connelly,Paul Newlove and Jamie Lyon would rack up at this current standard!

Moon is a very good player and his defensive work is consistently very good especially considering he has often had two HB's defending outside him when Burrow is on at hooker. Even though he had a good season last year he just doesn't have a truly natural position. Hall's try tallies started to drop as soon as Moon arrived.

I am sure you are right in his defensive qualities however, he is a perfect example of the modern day thinking that players must be flexible and play in several positions even if they don't have the capabilities to play in some positions.
Hall is one of the best wingers I have ever seen and these days he relies on kicks for a significant proportion of his tries and rarely gets a chance with ball in hand with a bit of space to work with. It is a sad indictment on the game that wingers today rely primarily on kicks for try opportunities. We have the same issue with both of our wingers.

I really do believe its a lot to do with how we play. We are the polar opposite to your team who all play within a structure and to set plans, where it has tended to be more off the cuff plays at Leeds that has brought us success the last decade. Ryan Hall would be getting 30 plus tries in your team over the last few years, where he has been starved of good ball for us at times and Moon like you say isn't a wingers centre for all his other qualities which adds to the lack of potency on the flanks at times. Watkins too is under used by us in good attacking positions, at times he looks a world beater and has it in him to rip any side to shreds but doesn't do it, or doesn't get the chance to it often enough. The defensive side of his game has come on leaps and bounds the last couple of seasons though.

Leeds overall style of play affects Halls try tally as well to be fair to Moon. They throw the ball about and I'd guess they score a higher percentage of their trys around the middle then us for example. If Hall was at Wigan he'd have scored 30 trys every year for the past five years because we always target the flanks. In that time our wingers haven't always had centres of the calibre of Watkins or Moon alongside them but the trys keep coming.

Whilst I've stated above I think Watkins and Moon are overrated I'd still say they're two of the best 3 or 4 currently kicking around the league.

Exceptional achievement. Wonder what the record is for SL? i would guess it was Saints at some point at KR.

Weird!

Typing pretty much the same at the same time.

I obviously fully agree

Ryan Hall is a good player, but all this WBW business... I was watching the NRL last night and it struck me. Know who Hall reminds me of? Josh Mansour. He's a good player, but no-one would call him the WBW.

Tbf the WBW name was given around 2011/12 around the time he scored some top class tries at international (the one in the corner when Slater broke his collarbone for example) and was MOM in the 2012 WCC and was still scoring a lot of tries. He still comes up with moments like the 2 vs Cas in the cup final and the playoff one vs Saints that help remind you why it was first coined. Like others have said I think he'd have gotten 30 tries a year these last few seasons had he been on Wigan's wing.