Stu M wrote:
Yesterday was gut wrenching and I’m still not over it now to be honest. I have a degree of sympathy for how Wigan fans felt after the 2020 GF.
However I do think there is now a feeling of some Wigan fans (not you in fairness NK as you are probably one of the more balanced Wigan fans on here) now thinking that you suddenly know how to beat us. I’m actually more confident than ever of making it 4 in a row.
We played our worst 40 mins of the season yesterday and Wigan took full advantage. We kicked out on the full, we were caught in possession on the 5th tackle twice, Knowles even kicked it dead for a 7 tackle restart. Uncharacteristic errors. I don’t think we’ll concede a try like Farrells for another 3 years.
Wigan scored when we were down to 12.
We had a lad playing his 3rd ever first team game in a pivotal position and Lomax with a torn bicep. Makinson was a passenger for 20 mins.
Even with all that adversity it took an interception for you to win the game.
Now this isn’t to not give Wigan any credit. Peet has done a fantastic job and you played well. You got us in a one off game but as I’ve said before your injuries helped you. TL plays instead of Smith yesterday and you lose that game.
Woolf and the players have a lot of credit in the bank but he got that wrong yesterday in the first half. Trying to protect Lomax backfired massively. Welsby was asked to play two positions and struggled. In the second half when Lomax got his hands on the ball more you could see the difference.
The gap between us is closing no doubt but there’s still a decent gap and that game yesterday doesn’t change that much.
You can’t expect me to wish you luck in the Final as the other way round I wouldn’t expect anything less than Wigan fans being Hudds fans for the day.
Enjoy your day out and without a doubt a strong Wigan is good for the game but comments like us being found out or nowhere near as good as we think we are are way off the mark.
I disagree Stu. I posted on here before the game that we would beat you. You may also remember after good Friday I listed the reasons we could beat you next time. I was right on both counts.
Now, don't get me wrong, Saints are still the benchmark (for now) but the gap is nowhere near what the more deluded amongst your fans think it is. You're very reliant on a dominant pack, which is fair enough as that's your strength, but it's at the expense of inventiveness and flair for the most part. It's all "get good field position, put a kick in and hunt a mistake". You have no plan B and that was shown up perfectly yesterday. When a misfiring Walmsley and an utterly gash Lees were on you looked second rate. As bad as any we've played this year. Once Paasi came on (and LMS was able, for a change, to follow his lead) you looked a different side.
Why does this matter? If it works it works, no? Well not entirely. Our forwards are starting to handle yours defensively. Walmsley has been pretty much neutralised both on GF and yesterday. Lees is pants. Only Passi from your props remains a problem. If we can work a way to handle him as we have Walmsley the gap between the sides would be non existent.
Incidentally saying "Leuluai plays and you lose" doesn't make it true. We might have won in a different way. I've seen on RedVee when I went on to have a good snigger earlier that your lot think you had that game won. There were 20 minutes to go when you took the lead and we needed less than half that to get it back again. If it was some kind of fluke you'd have taken the remaining 10 minutes to do exactly what we were able to do. You weren't able.
I'm not saying we'll win the next encounter. I'll make that prediction nearer the time. Be confident you'll win. That suits us fine. I'm sure you were equally confident this time around too.
