It looked a long shot after ten minutes but thankfully the people who thought it was just a case of getting the league rounds out the way were correct.

We need to improve with the ball but that defence will give us a shot and Matty Smith is playing a blinder.

Apologies Mr Wane, I have posted very little this season, even during our brightest moments, I thought we were heading for a fall. Tonight proved very different, a fantastic performance, a strategy to play against the weakest team in the last 4 and the Challenge Cup already in the cabinet, my beleif in Mr Wane has been proven unfounded. Take a bow!!!

Mark Bitcon deserves massive credit.

To me, it's just plain as anything that the playoff system is wrong. Once a top 4 finish was secured we've been going through the motions, CC games apart, in prep for week 1 of the playoffs. It's the crap system that allows this. The fact we are now at HOME in a semi final after finishing 4th shows there is no reason or motivation to finish top. Season ticket holders get short changed.

I hope your right pal. Think Powell needs a good off season but the signs are promising

Well we all know this, its been discussed to death. But it changes in a year (I just hope to god they get it right then) - for now we've just got to accept it as it is. This year its ended up favouring us whereas last year it didn't.

Definitely a lot of people looking a bit daft on this thread. As I said last week, I thought we played OK last week and there were good signs. We followed it through tonight and played extremely tough - the only concern now is whether a week off is a good thing for us. But we're back in a good position and with reason to be optimistic.

The week off is good, we don't get battered, the others do. And, we can work on moves I'm certain we have in reserve.

I must admit, for the first time in quite a while I'm glad that we've got a week off.

Wigan have seemed to slip into holiday mode during weeks off in the past, but this season, which has been one of the strangest ones I can remember for years, it feels different.

Whatever Wane's doing behind the scenes, whether it's all part of some master-plan, or he has simply managed to get the team back into form at just the right time (having already won the Cup, of course), I've got to give him a lot of credit.

I've been having serious doubts about SW in the last few weeks, but if he can get Wigan to Old Trafford and win the Grand Final, which suddenly feels possible again, it will be an astonishing achievement on top of the CC, eclipising anything that Michael Maguire managed with a more experienced team. He'll surely be the Wigan coach for years and years to come.

i know that my supposedly "Happyclappy" view counts for little in some quarters, but i have always had faith.

I don't subscribe for a moment to the view that Leeds finished 5th deliberately, they did end up there, and worked from the position they were in, and i don't believe for a moment we have aimed for 4th. What Leeds achieved has caused others to look at the competition differently and act accordingly. Wane and the back-room staff have looked at the situation and at the seasons injuries and have acted accordingly. Sam, Smith, Green and Lockers have all been injured, our main play-makers, it's not surprising that our attacking play has suffered! So they, the management team, have fielded weaker teams than they would have preferred, of that I'm certain. All with the aim of looking too the September/October competition. The management team will not have been looking at the next game like many fans will, they will have planned for the season as a whole, and have contingencies for injuries and the like.

Will we win, i don't know, but we are in a good position to do so. I hope from here on in some of our more negative posters will try to be a little more positive, much as it may pain them to do so.

I'll just finish with the much quoted saying "If you listen to the fan's, you end up sitting with them".

With the best will in the world, the fans only ever have half the facts at their fingertips - often considerably less. Even those whose main purpose online is to turn themselves into legends of inside info can't possibly know what's going on in total, despite pestering their 'contacts' on a daily basis for all the juicy gossip.

If Wigan manage to get to Old Trafford (regardless of the final result), this will ultimately have been a very good season for Shaun Wane and he'll have justified the faith the club's management have shown by extending his deal.

The lads have had three months off to work on moves

To be honest I would already describe it as a good season. If before a ball had been kicked you had offered me 4th, 80 mins from the GF and a Cup win I'd have snatched your hand off.

Yea lets rewind the clock back to January, we had lost a lot of quality players and didnt really have a big signing to boot. We were, what 4/5 th favourites?
Now in September we have a cup in the cabinet and we are 80 mins from a big p1s5 up in Manchester. Thats not a bad season in anyones book