It is rather annoying that you see lots of opposition fan comments saying we've been given the LLS, as though it was a given that we'd lose at home to a full strength Salford and as though the other 26 games haven't counted.

All par of the course I suppose. We've yet to win a fixture in the history of the game without the help of a ref/another club/corruption etc, let alone a trophy.

And that also speaks to the point earlier about the sort of advantage that 1st and 2nd have over the rest. For all we're talking about needing to play our best team to get them battle-hardened, that's safe in the knowledge that we have a week off and then a maximum of two games to prepare for. Most teams struggle to raise their intensity for one play off standard game, let alone three back to back if they want to win at OT.

Rowley is probably thinking that his best team, playing at their best, have half a chance of causing an upset. But he's probably also thinking that backing up performances is really hard at the best of times for a squad like Salford's, so why put yourself in that position?

https://x.com/WiganWarriorsRL/status/18 ... gr%5Etweet Over 15k sold for tonight, pretty surprising all things considered as i can't imagine a big turnout coming from Salford.

https://x.com/WiganWarriorsRL/status/18 ... gr%5Etweet Over 15k sold for tonight, pretty surprising all things considered as i can't imagine a big turnout coming from Salford.

Eckersley in for Miski, otherwise unchanged

Number one priority - avoid suspensions. No stupid tackles.

For me Peet got it bang on no point resting players go for the silverware and let the cards land where they may good performance against a poor Salford side can't ask for anymore

An easy game and then a 2 week break worries me slightly but the side look ready for a big tilt at a Grand Slam (has anyone in the media acknowledged that possibility yet? ). Opportunities like this don't come around very often and I think they'll know that.

I didn't notice any major injury worries. Dupree looked about ginger but nothing major. In terms of discipline,you never know what they may find but fingers crossed. Keighran was a bit daft in putting the shoulder in to Ormonroyd at one point but it was to the body and not the head, so it should be ok. Ellis seemed to put some contact on Cust, that he wasn't happy about in the 2nd half but I didn't really see what it was.

Can't imagine there'd be anything to worry about. Didn't seem to be a difficult game to referee, apart from the one flare-up. Very few pens and six-agains, I thought.

And yeah; Dupree. I said to my neighbour, he's been better the last few games, but he's still not really pulling up any trees, is he? What do you think?

I think he is doing fine.

professional performance and job done

hopefully no injuries or suspensions picked up

some nicely worked tries, and left some out there too, with what seemed like an obsession to kick to score at one point

Little flare up in the 2nd half was needed as it got the lads focussed again

2 wins away from immortality.

We had every excuse going not to win that Shield. World Club, Wembley, Mid week games, spine players missing most of summer.

Absolutely brilliant.