Wires plan was simple.
Exploit Saints lack of mobility amongst our big forwards.
Time after time Russell jumped in at dummy half and scooted. He beat the first marker nearly every time.
This meant Saints defence was on the back foot for most of the game. With Warrington on the front foot this allowed Monaghan to orchestrate his forwards into running through holes. Further stretching Saints defence and keeping us on the back foot.
On the 6th tackle with good field position wires view was to starve Saints of possession by forcing dropouts. This then denied us the opportunity to attack and forced us to expend yet more energy defending.
When we did get field position we were capable of exposing Warrington. However Wires tactics and orchestration of them was so good that we rarely got a sniff.
As has happened at other times this season, once a side got two scores up against Saints. The Saints players heads went down and we folded.
I put some of the errors down to the pressure we felt in the game.
Very few of this side have any big game experience. I think only Wello and Roby have picked up any gongs. The rest don't know what its like to win something, or even win big matches with something at stake.
That's one of the reasons why I think that it was essential to win the league leaders this year. Its not much of a trophy but it can and should be used as a springboard to bigger and better things.
As things stand I think Castleford will win it this year. We will fail miserably in the playoffs.
Next season without any half backs at the start of the year we will struggle. The new format will mean all sides will come out flying. This will be especially true of the likes of Wigan, Leeds and Warrington, who will show how much better than us they really are.
