I honestly think we miss O'Loughlin more than Sam. Hampshire is doing a great job stepping in SAMs shoes so far, nobody is stepping in O'Loughlins. It's not helping that our halves are playing also. What happened to their first half of the season form at all? Especially Green. We would've been better off without him today.

no blame on the young bloke but i thought he was dire tonight.

No matter which players were and were not playing, there's no excuse for powder puff defence like that.

3 Simple Words...

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No (Vice) Captain, No direction. MM is no stand in for SOL.

The ST affair is creating too much apathy and complacency, resulting in zero team ethic.
Does IL et al think we are all stupid?.. Minor back problem?, my Jim Royle.
Wrapping in cotton wool, more like it, and everyone with a season ticket should now be demanding at least a partial refund.

Spot on even crap players can tackle

You need to get rid of luaki he's a liabilty

You have him we will have Wood off you. I will throw in a bag of Skittles and an pie.

The amount of top quality talent we have lost since 2010 and are continuing to lose is a massive concern here. Our production of young talent is top class but the kids need time and losing top quality players( 3 or 4 every season for the last 2-3 years) is taking its toll... especially since our entire attacking structure is built around a freak talent and when he doesn't play it becomes massively predictable for the top sides to stop.

Hudds were worthy winners tonight and didn't even play well .


All that being said... we were still without our 1,7,13 and there's still hope but lets face it, at the start of the season with all the players we lost, none of us expected to be top or even be in with a shout towards the end and we have a huge chance of lifting silverware in 2 weeks time.

No need for Wigan fans to over react IMO.
Only 2 trophies worth winning and you have a good chance of both. It's about getting your best team fit and on the field for the play offs that matters. Tonights result means little in the grand scheme of things.

You're right. The problem is our record against the top 4 this season is played 6 won 1. That's the biggest worry going into the playoffs. We're flat track bullies, that doesn't win Grand Finals.

So there's only 2 games worth turning up for us speccies ?

The Grand Finat at OT and Wembley ?

I wish someone had told me that years ago.

Don't take this the wrong way but Tony Smith wouldn't touch Luaki with a barge pole. If he displayed as much aggression with ball in hand as he does getting involved in face to face or kicking stamping once he's lost the ball or just being daft then he would be a player.

Agree with most of the above but MM was the only player with any real fire in his belly as usual. There was nothing from most forwards and I agree that we miss lockers more than Sam. We had no leadership in the middle and it only went wrong once the subs started to come on. 1st 15 we were fine. Taylor went ok, MM was going well, enter subs, all down hill.

We will win at Wembley but I fear for the play offs.

If you watch the game again without the emotion you'll realise most are over-reacting. We weren't that bad.

The difference between the 2 teams tonight was the kicking game. Our kicks found the man, theirs found the floor. Had Sam Powell's penalty found touch i'd wager a very different result. That was the point of the game when Hudds took control. Obviously there was one shocking call which didn't help.

I have a theory on Tomkins. As far as we believe he is off to NZ at the end of the season and we don't have a replacement. This means one of the current squad has to play FB next year. You can put forward a case as to who you prefer, it seems Hampshire is the chosen one. If he is to play as first choice next year he needs game time this year. It wouldn't surprise me if Sam only plays the CC final and any play off games, ie the only ones that really matter to give Hampshire as much game time as possible.

In my honest opinion, if you couple that performance but factor in Tomkins, Smith, O'Loughlin and Flower, also take out the lunacy of Lauaki, we'll be there or there abouts.

Utter bollox.

Look at our record without Sam. Look at it without Lockers.


Lockers is a vastly improved player over the last 2 or 3 seasons there is no doubt.

However, our real problem is our lack of creativity. Our halves are hopeless.

We have rehed moves (which even I can work out now, obviously our opposition has. If I see the mis-out pass to Farrell on the left one more time, my head will be bloody from the facepalms.


Sam is the X factor. He makes our dull, repetitive moves look good.


If Wane want's to go down under next year he has my blessing.

Massively reliant on a once in a decade superstar.