And we won, which clearly irks some...

I already explained why its not the case when you posted your theory earlier in the week. The team clearly tried to win games that would have left us in third. So we were not cruising. If it's all about negotiating where you finish in the top 8 how come the masters of the play-offs, Leeds, made a balls up of it and beat us convincingly at the DW to take third? Why didn't they send a team of kids with their first team "injured"? And why did we expend so much effort in trying to stop them?

My general view is there is far too much made of this idea teams don't play to win the league games and I think the idea a team will aim to finish 4th while at the same time clearly trying to win games that would take it into 3rd proves that notion to be false.

That said how we got here from a comment of mine likening the way we played tonight to how we played at Wembley I have absolutely no idea.

It's one hell of a conspiracy theory to suggest we stopped playing in July so we got the easier playoff run-in

Personally I'm not sure how a team can play to lose, they are professionals, ideally they want to play their best week in week out

Easy, you play at 70%, they do it in all other sports

We played sensible rugby tonight and we did at Wembley. If you can't see the difference between those two performances compared to most in the latter half of the league season you need some new glasses. We played not to lose? What sort of cliché is that?

We played dumb rugby in the first half at Wembley when Hull were basically there for the taking. Only a single try (a fluke) with all that position and possession simply because the team were throwing the ball back and forth and not forcing the defence inside and creating overlaps. In the second half the rugby was much smarter, a taster of what we got tonight which was perfect rugby for the conditions and the playoffs.

Correct. Life is a lot simpler than some would have you believe. They play to win and the team will end up where it ends up in the league. The only time players will be rested is in true dead rubbers or if we are playing a very poor side (so still expect to be competitive despite a few out) and they won't even be then if there is some special promotion on such as the Superman game with us V Leeds.

Dave you are either blinded by your ego or clueless. I think it is the former.

We ran one out in the Cup final. Do not think we did one move. We played tonight like we did at the start if the season.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion but if yours is that tonight was a similar performance to the Cup final yours with all due respect is wrong.

So there were similarities then. In both games we played some sensible RL given the conditions and the fact we might have not managed it for 80 mins at Wembley doesn't alter that. If we learned something from the CC final and applied it to tonight this is good and as I said in my first post tonight not a coincidence. That is actually a compliment to the team and the coach. A pity some people seemingly wanted to jump on that as they did.

so did Wane take the reins off, huddersfield just not that good or the players have decided to go all out now?

The last one without question.

Blake Green - that is all.

+1

he does need to work on hes passing game but he was very good at the start of the season and looked better tonight