Thought it was going to be another Leeds v Saints GF after the first 40. Sky team doing the usual ''Warrington have been excellent tonight'' lines, and yes they were......in the 2nd half. Saints lost it from not getting far enough ahead at the break, on balance of play about a 12 point half-time would of been a fairer reflection than the 2 points it actually was. Reminded me of the '07, '08, '09 GF vs Saints. They were in it at half-time, actually the better team and then they just let the game steadily slip out of their grasp in the second half when the opposition upped their game and they couldn't go with them.

As for Wire in the final. Well a tale of two halfs, first comfortably outplayed and got 2 tries through Saints gifting them possesion, otherwise didn't get near the Saints line. Second half they clicked and played the way they can, they managed to get Briers into positions he could do damage as well as stopping Saints making as many yards forward. Throughout the match Wire's defence in their last 20m was very good, mixed in with a bit of sloppiness from Saints at times when up there, which is a problem Leeds do suffer from too at times. McGuire will be back but will it be enough to score the at least 4-5 tries (possibly more?) we'll need to outscore Warrington? If Warrington can produce that defence on the biggest occasion and not get overawed by it being their first GF then Leeds will have a struggle on their hands to get points.

If we defend like last night,they wont get more than 2-3.should be a classic as stevo would say!

I think it will be closer than wembley but wire have the better forwards and if briers brings his kicking boots I fear for us.

We do in that we have the experience and the ability but we don't have the attitude, especially up front. Our forwards go missing at crucial times without James Graham to hound them, and Rush has insisted on playing a half who isn't one with one who is still learning in a pairing that isn't pairing at all, while leaving one true half to rot in the u20s.

Still, personally I am relieved we are not at OT next week. Leeds would have battered us and I couldn't have taken a fourth battering! Wire have been the better team all season and deserved their win.

warrington will offer far more in attack than the one dimensional wigan did last night. Leeds will have to find a way to stop warringtons left hand side, and find a way to score some points, there certainly weren't many cracks at wembley when the game was still close.

Wigans game is so drilled and systematic, you can find ways to deal with it. Warrington are more unpredictable.

I think the game will follow exactly the same pattern as wembley. It will be fairly tight in the first quarter, leeds will huff and puff without really stretching warrington.

Between 55 and 70 minutes is where warrington will score 2 or 3 tries and take the game beyond leeds.

Wigan scored 2 and i thought at times they fluffed chances to go at our right side and Wire have a much quicker centre/wing partnership on that side. Warrington also posess a better attacking kicker in Briers. We will only keep Wire down to 2-3 if we're near perfect with our discipline in defence and aren't giving them piggy backs up field and repeat sets.

Good grief might as well not go next week then judging by some of you lot.

We should be favourites, it's like a home game for us.

I wouldn't go that far, but I'd definitely say its a 50-50 contest.

Leeds have the obvious advantage of the massive GF experience, Wire have the advantage of handing Leeds their backsides on a plate in the last 2 major finals they have met.

I'm not sure that playing in front of 70,000 at Old Trafford is any more intimidating than playing in front of 70,000 at Wembley, so I'm not convinced that Wire will freeze on the day, which is obviously a hope that Leeds' fans may harbour.

It will be a tight contest though, and the real turning point could be the weather - A standard October night in Manchester (rain, rain and a bit more rain), will give Leeds an advantage, as a Sinfield-inspired 80 minute grind, could be your best chance of stopping a Wire side that likes to get on a roll and blow away sides, while playing free running rugby.

Just hope both sides turn up and play to their best, as it would be a shame if either side 'bottled' it and it turned into an anti-climax.

Even if it does rain warrington have the kicking game and the forwards for a slow grind. Tony smith is no stranger to those tactics. Whichever way I look at this it's a warrington win I'm afraid. But you just don't know in sport, and we've been here many times before with leeds, up against it in the grand final. That is the good thing, we will be underdogs again, with warrington hot favourites.

Not for one minute do I think Wire will freeze at Old Trafford, and I don't think many do. What I do know is that the Leeds players are 100% confident in the Old Trafford environment, and will approach the game in a completely different frame of mind to the Challenge Cup final. This is their patch, and they won't let go of the trophy easily.

Having said all that, part of me fears a Warrington win in the manner of our 2007 win. Not many Saints fans or even players considered the fact that they might lose to Leeds that year, Saints just didn't lose Grand Final's back then, or any finals for that matter. Yet we turned up and did a comprehensive job on them. Leeds will have to be wary of that this time.

...... That's amateur psychology at its worst!!

Whatever you may think, next weekend is a close call - You have just gone to the side who finished top and beat them without your most potent player.....Wire have stuttered through the play-offs and only really got going in the last 40 minutes at Saints.

League positions and previous cup final meetings will all be pretty irrelevant once the match kicks off and to suggest Wire are an overwhelming favourite is being very naive.

"MADE UP FACT OF THE DAY"!

Ever since last years final we've played the underdog card a little too much for my liking. In the eyes of the media and the bookies, this will be too close to call, purely because of our previous experience.

how many of wire's 17 came through their academy today?

Can I clarify, the academy that beat your academy in the grand final today !

That's fair enough, however the real test us how many will make the transition to the senior side

There will probably be a few spots open given the age profile of Warrington's senior side, so I would expect a few of them will get their chance.

The thing with academy side progression to the first team is there are no prizes really for producing steady SL standard players, what really makes a difference is finding a few top class players and keeping them at the club. Lots of clubs can report decent numbers of players that are first team regulars that came through their academy but the real merit comes in having guys like Sinfield, Burrow and McGuire in the team for a decade which is what Leeds success has been built on.

Warrington have been getting better results at youth level over the past few years but whether we have guys of that calibre we will have to see. It's a shame we were so disorganised in the mid 1990s because when we finished joint top of the league in 1994 and Iestyn Harris & Paul Sculthorpe emerging out of the Academy we could have had a different future had those guys played their careers at Wire.

Saville Row wrote: Can I clarify, the academy that beat your academy in the grand final today !




"DOH"!!!

I`ll say again..... "Made up fact of the day"!!

Can't argue with that.

Not a point scoring excersise but how many first teamers did come through the wire academy?

Last night Riley, Harrison and Cooper came through academy. Also this season Evans, O'Brien, McCarthy, Blythe, Dwyer, Currie and Williams had varied numbers of starting 17 slots. That's not bad for a side that ( as Sally C pointed out ) was so strapped for cash in the late 1990s that we scrapped the 'A' team to save money. It takes years to re-build a youth set up. As some have pointed out, we can't be doing too badly now given yesterday's Valvoline result.

Yes, with Warrington's Academy it was essentially reboot and rebuild from scratch around 10 years ago. We had scrapped the academy temporarily in the late 1990s. Richie Mathers was on the books as a schoolboy around that time before he went over to Leeds.

We set up a scholarship system with William Beamont school and have put more and more effort into the youth set up but also we were starting from a much further behind position because compared to places like Leeds and Wigan or the Cas/Wakey area that have lots of junior clubs around, Warrington doesn't historically have the same density of junior players and clubs on our doorstep. In that context we have done really well in terms of catch up over the last decade.

In terms of really good players that we have produced, since Harris and Scully came through in the mid 1990s there is only really Paul Wood and Chris RIley that have been consistent top SL players that would interest the top clubs. Ian Sibbit is the other one that went on to have a long SL career albeit most of it not with us. Paul Noone l thought was a decent player but just as he looked to have cracked it in 2005, he seemed to fall out of favour in 2006 and after being released by us disappeared. The more recent generation of young players, Harrison, Cooper, McCarthy, Evans, are good though, and have been able to hold their own in a top side.

At the moment I am fairly optimistic that we will have a fair few SL standard players from the ranks coming through as the Academy team has been strong for the last few years and we have had a good set of representative call ups at junior level. The real question is if/where the likes of Sinfield/McGuire/Burrow are going to come from. No matter how good the coaching is they can't manufacture a player of that calibre they can only help players reach their own maximum potential. Those Leeds guys not only had huge natural ability but also great attitudes and mental discipline which made them reach and stay at the top, again this is born not made.

As for the argument that Warrington have been buying up young talent from other clubs this is true, but this is nothing unusual from us, top sides have done it all the time. Since we have been able to spend up to the full salary cap we have been spending the same as the other top clubs but the lack of having a lot of big guns from our own academy in the first team has left us with more apparent signing power than our rivals: Leeds, Wigan and Saints are having to use salary cap space on Sinfield, McGuire, O'Loughlin, Tomkins, Roby etc and those guys will be on good salaries. Although we'd love to have had those guys come through, the fact we haven't, has left us with more spare cash lying over hence we've been the front runners in the market for the best young players at the smaller clubs eg Myler, Ratchford, Atkins etc. This is a better use of funds than signing ageing players or big names for the sake of it.

But also lets be honest other big clubs have done this all the time. Guys like Iestyn Harris and Gareth Ellis were huge players for Leeds that came through smaller clubs academy systems and Leeds don't need to feel guilty about that, neither do Saints for signing Sculthorpe and Wilkin. People notice Warrington because they have become more active in that market in recent years. If we do manage to bring through some big guns out of our own youth system though we will have less salary cap space and so will be less big players in the market.

I would love to know how Warrington do manage their salary cap with all the big names in it !!!

That's because they play for the love of the game and to win trophies at a big club. Also I imagine the opportunity to work under [iuber[/i coach tony smith would be a factor as well.

They're the new big game team, they've replaced saints with their star studded line up and their 'win every single final we play in' team.