What a great side they look and whilst we were never this good we had many of the traits of this side under Maguire. Some of those look to be slowly fading away though which is a real worry.

-Controlled aggression

-Scrambling line defence

-Full on kick chase

-Low error count

We look so sloppy at the moment and the players should be shown the video from Souths tonight to try and retrain them in to our old style of play.

And not one sign of dirty play.

It seems so long ago.

I too can't help but watch that game without feeling a sense of nostalgia for all the reasons you have mentioned.

The NRL teams have just done the basics of RL, but to the highest possible standard. No errors. Keep your discipline. Let your big blokes work their way up the field (not wildly putting shift plays on in your own half) who provide the platform for the backs to wreak havoc with brilliantly executed plays. The kicking game of all 3 Aussie sides was vastly superior too.

The sad thing is had Wire/Wigan kept their discipline with the ball, retaining posession and therefore not burning their energy - I think both sides would have won.

Souths on the other hand were on a different planet to all 5 of the other sides.

They was good but saints was very very poor. Outclassed!

I was impressed by their game management, that drop goal really killed off any chance of a fight back

They're not bad are they? Saints were poor and miss Walsh but blimey, different planet.

If anything watching Saints get absolutely and deservedly outclassed just made me sad.

Madge set us up for a prolonged period of success and it's all slowly being picked away.

Wane has to take the lion share of the blame due to the way he's flooded the side with kids and moved away from that low error, low penalty, nasty defence that we had. He purposely give it the big i am when he took over and, imo, he's had 1 good season out of 3 in charge.

IL has to also take the blame for letting a special group of players slowly break apart.

What i wouldn't give to see an experienced team playing that brutal defence week in week out.

Just be thankful that Sam Burgess wasn't playing as well. There is no point the SL clubs trying to find excuses. The best thing they can do is learn from the experience and come back better for the experience. If that happens then SL as a whole will benefit.

Maguire set up the systems, but had no interest in playing the youngsters.

He threw away any chance of winning the league his second year by flogging the players to win the Challenge Cup.

Great coach, but he's not a saint.

Wigan are succeeding under difficult circumstances - when your 20yo winger would rather off to Australia rather than establish himself in SL what can you do? Youngsters are the way forward, as Saints/Warrington/Leeds are finding now - we've just been ahead of the curve as usual.

What?
Get reality check up with your doctor or start to watch football.

This

I didn't start this to bag Wane, he's had some more difficult circumstances to deal with then Maguire and doesn't have as talented a group of players.

I would like to think that Wane would have similar thought to myself tonight though whilst watching the game. They did the basics relentlessly and fed off Saints errors. They were aggressive were it mattered (tackling and running) but never got involved in any real niggle (just walking away many time when a Saints player would start a bit of push and shove). They played with a calm assurance and as a real team. They chased every kick like their life depended on it and respected possession in a similar manner. These are things we've gone away from and we need to re-focus. Waney doesn't need to over complicate things are let last years trophy less campaign panic him.

I'd love to see us come out at HKR and really get back in to it. Good completions, clockwork timing, chasing every ball and controlling our temper.

First of all we aren't succeeding. Two trophies in one year mixed in between two barren seasons isn't great. Let's not sugar coat that we had a lot of luck in that one season as well - Hull FC cup final, 70-0 vs London in the Semi Final and luckily with injuries in the GF. In contrast we won the CC under Madge by going though Wire, Saints and Leeds, it's little wonder we ran out of steam.

Flooding the side with inexperienced youngsters is not the way forward. Letting guys like Green go and replacing them with an out of position 20 year old isn't good for anyone.

Also Madge brought young guys through it's just he did it when he knew they would make an improvement to the side i.e Charnley and Faz He didn't just give game time to anyone for the sake of it. He also recognised there were enough young lads in the side with Sam, Tommy, Mcilorum, Joel & Mossop and he focused on improving that small core by putting experience around them.

Let's not forget Madge signed one player in his first season and took a side that had finished sixth to the title.

You don't think that's Wanes fault though do you?

I can't see that at all. Ian Lenagan knows Wane is a man who trusts youth but he's also a man who loves winning. He's lost players he didn't want to lose, he's had to give debuts to kids earlier then in sure he'd have liked to.

He's done incredibly well in the circumstances to keep us where we are. Not many clubs could lose approx 20 players in 4 or 5 years and keep finishing up near the top of the league.

I think he needs to get a bit of a grip at the moment Wane but overall he's done a fantastic job.

I think he's partly to blame for it. He's certainly made the job harder than it needs to be by moving away from what was a successful strategy that was still its relevant infancy. It's not like he came in off the back of a 6/7 year period of one stone and needed to freshen things up.

He's also stirred things up with his comments and, Imo, that's added extra dimensions to games that simply didn't need to be there.

I also think IL has a part to play in the breakup of a potential dynasty. We've seen Watkins and Hall secured at Leeds and we've also seen some big enough names come over in positions we've needed i.e Burns, Walsh, Carney, Locke, Simms etc go to others without a whimper from us. He doesn't seem to secure those big deals when we desperately need them I'm not talking purely financial matters here I'm talking about coercion that's needed at that level.

I think if Ian Lenagan had said to Wane 'we're signing a replacement for Blake Green' he'd have been happy with that.

I think Wane is happy to go down the juniors route because it's his passion to some extent but also because it's what he's being given to work with and ultimately he doesn't get a great deal of choice. Kris Rads admitted as much as the fans forum that him and Lenagan pick the players to sign and give Wane the names to get his opinion. If they'd have gone to him and said here's Travis Burns or here's Todd Carney I think he'd have been delighted.

Looking forward to next year Manfredi will take over from Burgess and Hampshire will possibly take over from Bowen and they'll run with a thinner squad behind them IMO. They'll probably sign a back from a relegated side to add cover. Do I think that's Wanes preferences? Probably not.