The Reaper wrote:
They were crap against Salford too and very lucky to win that game due to some dubious refereeing.
Realistically I don't think they've looked too good all season. Their defence has looked soft every time I've watched them play. Obviously their attack is really good when they are all on form, but I don't think they're well set up to win big knockout games. They've had the benefit of a relatively "easy" start to the season and have rode a bit of luck and think they've been found out a bit now. Still expect them to finish in the top 4 comfortably, but I really don't see them doing much in the play offs. Think its largely going to be down to us, you and if Catalan can sneak a top 2 finish and get a home semi, them too.
They’re a chance but it’s been made pretty clear this past 2 weeks that it’s still an outside one. Once they’ve got Vaughan plus 3 other props available, they’ll be able to play more like the team Powell wants but they’ve still got real question marks against their mentality.
I’m going to give Saints real credit now in regards to how we now play. We’ve been conditioned to play at an unbelievable intensity when we need to, simply because Saints have made us go to those levels to compete. It’s took us feeling plenty of pain against Saints between 2019-2021, to give us a bar we had to reach. We still didn’t quite have it in us in the first Derby of 2022 but since then we’ve gone toe to toe and it now feels like we’re fully aware of the level we need to be at to stick in the battle and we’ve done it in every Derby game since. Wire were so far off that bar these past two weeks and will need to raise a number of levels to win a big game against Wigan but even more so, against Saints.