St Helens and Wigan : Fri Jul 15, 2022 8:42 pm  

The gap between these 2 heavyweights and the rest of super league is just massive. Ian Watson was giving it large this week about how he wants his Huddersfield team to be the 3rd team in the mix. Come on. Hudds need to build an academy first, something that St Helen’s and Wigan are 30 years in front of everyone else with. Instead of signing players no one else wants, concentrate on grass roots as that’s the basis for St Helen’s and Wigans success.

We all want to see more more teams in the grand final mix but it’s not going to happen for years. Just don’t beat your chest to the press just because your club is the best of a very bad bunch

Re: St Helens and Wigan : Fri Jul 15, 2022 8:52 pm  

This shows had bad super league is. The supposed 3rd best team in super league get absolutely mullered by a team with 11 men.

This is why we need expansion, because the likes of Huddersfield and hull fc are just an embarrassment

Re: St Helens and Wigan : Fri Jul 15, 2022 10:03 pm  

The best attacking team and the best defensive team starting to show their metal now, whilst the other contenders are falling away.

French to score 7 try's is impressive no matter what team they are playing.

Re: St Helens and Wigan : Fri Jul 15, 2022 10:12 pm  

TheWarringtonWolve69 wrote:

This shows had bad super league is. The supposed 3rd best team in super league get absolutely mullered by a team with 11 men.

This is why we need expansion, because the likes of Huddersfield and hull fc are just an embarrassment

The like of you keep on harping on about expansion just where are you going to get these players from if the other rich clubs Huddersfield, Warrington, Hull fc and Leeds can't reach the same quality isn't that enough to get through that thick skull of yours.

Congratulations on the win that was impressive

[Mild Rover]

Re: St Helens and Wigan : Sat Jul 16, 2022 9:25 am  

TheWarringtonWolve69 wrote:

Instead of signing players no one else wants, concentrate on grass roots as that’s the basis for St Helen’s and Wigans success.

A basis, not the basis and not remotely the most important.

Investment banking and software systems for workforce management are more relevant factors. My own club’s rise from the second tier to be one of the large group of SL whipping boys, on to which McManus and Lenegan can vent the full fury of their fortunes, has relied on personal injury and medical negligence claims.

Money wins. That’s just how it is. Enjoy your team’s success, but don’t think that means you have some special insight as to what underpins it, and stick your sporting moralising and bs blueprint for success up your booty. Please.

Re: St Helens and Wigan : Sat Jul 16, 2022 9:33 am  

TheWarringtonWolve69 wrote:

This shows had bad super league is. The supposed 3rd best team in super league get absolutely mullered by a team with 11 men.

This is why we need expansion, because the likes of Huddersfield and hull fc are just an embarrassment

Saints performance last night was immense, no question.
Their forwards completely dominated all night and when they went a man down, that effort actually seemed to increase so, well played.

Wigan stuffing FC is a different kettle of fish though.

FC havent exactly been setting the world alight and when a side starts running hot, with the other side off their game, you see some blowout scores.
However, well played Wigan, you can only beat what is in front of you.

As for Huddersfield, they flatter to deceive but, seem to have a huge hangover from their cup final defeat and it's knocked their confidence big time.

Right now, it would be a brave man to bet against a Saints v Wigan GF but, Catalan could still have plenty to say and if Huddersfield sort themselves out, they could come good again.

As for expansion

Unless Wales fall out with RU or we allow a full side of Aussie and Kiwis, where on earth would the players come from to fill these expansion sides ?

Down the line, we may struggle to have enough youngsters coming through for the 12 or 10 SL clubs that currently make up the top flight.

Re: St Helens and Wigan : Sat Jul 16, 2022 9:43 am  

Look more to develop promising players and youngsters. Most teams seemed to go for 1 or 2 big name (usually Aussies) signings rather than work on player development. There are examples of players currently playing Super League who came from the Championship and were patient, developed their game and broke through. Benefiting the clubs who were prepared to be patient with the development. I'm not suggesting it is the total answer. Don't really want to name names about individual clubs, but as Warrington fans themselves criticise the club policy of big money signings at the expense of development I'll use them as an example. It's not all about money, if it were Warrington would have won several Grand Finals.

[Mild Rover]

Re: St Helens and Wigan : Sat Jul 16, 2022 10:10 am  

RogerMoore wrote:

It's not all about money, if it were Warrington would have won several Grand Finals.

It isn’t all about money… just mostly.

It is definitely more about money than it is patience. Even then, patience is a luxury only the rich clubs can afford. Even if it weren’t for relegation, what sort of message does it send to fans and players, young or otherwise, if we say we’re not going to worry much about winning for a few years at a club that already doesn’t win much? Jamie Peacock’s 5-year plan for Hull KR should be a cautionary tale for the whole of SL.

You know that saying about the devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world that he doesn’t exist? I sometimes wonder if Saints and Wigan fans aren’t just naively smug/smugly naive (apologies for the gross generalisation) but are smart enough to use the patience bs to bulwark their dominance, sending the dimwitted poor off down the wrong path. As in so much else in life! I’d kind of admire that.

Re: St Helens and Wigan : Sat Jul 16, 2022 11:01 am  

Both St Helens and Wigan have a plethora of local youngsters in key positions who are outstanding talents. Players you can build a team around. That’s the blueprint for their success.

Some of these players weren’t even stars at academy level. It’s all about the coaching set up. If your club can’t produce the same standard they need to look at the coaches

[Mild Rover]

Re: St Helens and Wigan : Sat Jul 16, 2022 12:00 pm  

TheWarringtonWolve69 wrote:

It’s all about the coaching set up.

No, it isn’t.

It isn’t all about any one thing. More than any other single thing, it is about money.

Look, I’m sort of sorry if this is a Santa-isn’t-real thing, but I feel at some point you sort of deserve the truth. And in fairness, you’re not going to get it from ex-players-turned-pundits who played most of their careers at rich clubs, or commentators whose livelihoods depend on pretending anything could happen this week or year and isn’t that exciting?

Right, I’m off to tell some Halifax and Swinton fans how their clubs should be run, with some implied blame that it is their own shortcomings and lack vision that has led to their clubs languishing in the lower divisions, and if they could just understand that East Hull has a better culture than the places they come from they could maybe start to emulate us and get into SL. Just like I wake up every day and wish I’d grown up in St Helens, and breathed the same rarefied air as… oh, ffs… all the players whose names would scan properly are from Widnes or Wigan, so it’ll have to be Jonny Lomax.

So that is patience and coaching set-up addressed. Any more nonsense, self-delusional silver bullets you’d me to smack into the bleachers for you?