I am more optimistic now than I have been all year that we are capable of doing the double. I am not saying we will, or we should, but it was impossible for us to keep the form we showed early season through to the business end of the season.

In previous seasons the coaching staff have been criticised for not getting the team to peak. Realistically you can expect a team to peak twice a year, I genuinely believe we will start to build towards the playoffs after the Cup.

Catalans away was always going to be a huge ask the week before the final, and Leeds the week after will be a tough game, but I feel we are having our lull at the right time, just like Wire and Leeds.

As I said earlier I do not think we will or should do the double, but I think we are in better shape than we have been in previous years to mount a serious title challenge.

Well IMO it's more like a slump than a lull! It was inevitable at some stage as you say. However, it would have been nice to see a return to form this week at the latest but if it happens next week then that will be the most perfect of timing. You know more about performance than I but can it really upturn sufficiently this week when we will miss a days training due to travel from France? We look way off the pace in all areas to me.

the $64,000 question is though .... "can we turn it on again after taking a 2 month breather, once the top 4 place was sewn up" ?????
if we can, then SW is a genius.
if we cant, then its back to the drawing board

It will certainly ruffle a few feathers of certainty - if we don't win anything this year either, having clearly taken our foot off the gas in the league, the way so many suggested we should have done at the end of last year.

It definitely will be back to the drawing board if that happens.

I have always believed throughout this slump that the players will turn up in CC games.
So we will win at Wembley imo.
And i dont care about the last 2 regular round games either. Looking at the table 3rd is the worst scenario (99% certain Wire away), so 2nd looks an option (Wire home), but needs help from Saints and its going to flog the players, so 4th (hudds away) will do nicely. We rest players, then go into a nice short knock out competition and WIN the grand final

I need to lie down, im finding too much to be optimistic about

I can see us potentially picking up our game and managing to scrape a win against Leeds/Huddersfield, but I just can't see us coming up with the goods against Wire. Our record against them since '06 is horrendous: P19 W5 D1 L13, and one of those wins was the week after they won the Cup Final and they sent half a team. More recently, we're now 5 games in a row against them without a win. Worrying stuff!

This is precisely my feeling. Comparing this to last year, we limped into the playoffs exhausted and carrying a lot of injuries. This year, everyone should be fresh and raring to go!

Loving the optimism here , just not feeling it if I'm honest

Last nights game was awfull , we looked lethargic , dis jointed , I'd go as far to say some didn't look interested

Just hope I'm proved wrong

Next week will be the acid test.

If we turn it on and thump Hull then I think we can safely say that form of the past few weeks has been at least partly due to the club taking the foot off the gas (and given the structure of the competition, I believe this is the correct thing to have done).

However, a scrappy win or a loss will suggest that there is a significant problem.

All eyes on next week.

An acid test to be sure.....

I admire the optimism but I am with you we have been dross for weeks and can't see how this will turn around.

Let's hope we are both wrong.

I hope we thump Hull but I think it will be the latter a scrappy win or loss and on current form it will be a loss, I just can't see how where going to just turn the form tap on, really hope I'm wrong

Ever since Warrington away we have become worse and worse. Excluding 2 challenge cup games against lower league opposition we haven't really done anything to impress. I'd like to think it's tactical but it seems more like confidence has just been shot to pieces.

I think everyone is over analysing the whole situation.

If wigan win the CC, or do well in the playoffs it will be because they've pulled themselves together and turned up on the day, not because of any agenda to play poorer and certainly not losing games.

Last season for example, leeds went into the playoffs after a shellacking at wembley and at hudds (who crashed out in the 1st round) the week before the playoffs. Everything pointed to season petering out. Sometimes it's just how the team turns up when it matters, and logic and what's happened before goes out the window.

Now I [iknow[/i wigan are going to turn up and play very well at wembley next week. But hull have been in excellent form this past month and are defensively solid, so it should be a very close game, could easily go either way. But if wigan lose it doesn't mean they won't do well in the playoffs.