All teams look great when the opposition let them play and Wigan are no exception, great sides are able to maintain standards when the pressure is on. In the last two knock games of real significance Wigan have been found wanting, both Saints and Leeds showed up and Wigan couldn't cope. This result says more about Wigan than it does about Leeds - are Wigan like Warrington flat track bullies who cannot cope with real adversity?

Amazing, as i am totally impartial i can say that the only bad refereeing decision i saw was when Farell just befor half time gave a pass on the thirty that far forward he had to kick it (between the 30 & 20)and Wigan scored.

Some of the comments from a small minority of so called Wigan fans on here is embarrassing and totally cringeworthty(ie "only won by 9 points, gifted 3 tries, bad ref" etc, etc.. - not forgetting "well done BUT blah,blah.....) - why not just say "well done" and be gracious in defeat. I feel like I'm reading comments from someone from a primary school playground. We lost - congratulate the opposition, leave it at that & get over it.

We were beaten by far the better team. Burrows was absolutely awesome. Leeds throughly deserved the win.
The vast majority of Wigan fans I know who stood near me were all of the same opinion. Good luck at Wembley.

A statement I made after Webb fumbled that high ball in last years final. Both horror show balls.

Trad.Arr : 'Lambeth Walk'

[i"When you're getting beat by Leeds,
With ten minutes left, you won't be pleased
And we'll see you all ....
Doing the Wigan Walk"[/i

I thought your last post was supposed to be your last pontification on the subject ....

There's more bites here than Fish-O-Mania

I have to say I thought Wigan were never in the game once Leeds scored their second try. It had that feel of a game where Leeds are always chasing but never catch up except this time it was the other way around. Yes, Wigan could have come back but I just didn't feel it (and I'm a really pessamistic supporter).
I also thought Wigan played well, but Burrow tore them a new one again and again and Sinfield got everything right. I agree Burrow took the wrong option when Hall was caught short second half - Hall's after match interview indicated he was playing on one leg in the second half, which probably explains why he looked so sluggish going for the corner - still a great tackle.
We got the rub of the green definately, but Wigan had a little luck as well. When Tomkins made his break that set up their first try the space was clearly made because the tackled player moved 2-3 metres off the mark when he played the ball (something Wigan seem to do a lot) which left no Leeds defenders.

Leeds forwards actually looked fresh - the extra couple of days to turnaround might have made a difference, but for me it was Burrow who just took Wigan to bits on the back of some great play the balls. Noble called it before the game and he was spot on. Credit to Darth Millward for backing Leeds.

I can't find negatives from Leeds here - just a great team performance with some individual pieces of brilliant skill when needed. Wigan were always going to score some points, they've done it for fun all season so far.
There's life in the old dogs yet.

Will eagerly await the result of todays game to find out who Leeds will lose to this year in the final (told you I was a pessamist).

He wasn't the only one. There were 2 "one-legged" wingers going for the corner together at that point. Charnley was really struggling in the 2nd half.

Well done Leeds. I've watched the game again this morning and despite errors early in the game, you beat us fair and square. Thought the usual suspects, Sinfield, Burrows, Maguire, Peacock, Hall, along with Hardaker, Watkins and BJB were excellent, especially Sinfield. It's amazing what pressure can do to top players but Leeds once again have shown they can master it.

I'm just off now to be sick.

Another Wigan fan coming on to just say well done for yesterday. Many of ours fans will blame the referee, with good reason, but Thaler didn't leave gaps and miss tackles as we did so many times. Being 16-0 down after 12 minutes was always too much for us to catch up on, and Sinfield was too good yesterday as well as Burrow tearing us to pieces.

It felt weird leaving the ground, wasn't as gutted as I thought I'd be and was because we didn't deserve to win, you controlled and didn't let us play. Spoke to some Leeds fans coming out and always have a bit of banter with you lot, and was surprised as they told me "not to worry, you'll be lifting the SL trophy at Old Trafford."

But anyway, good luck and hope you win at Wembley if you're playing Wire, but if Huddersfield get there I'm a Giant for the day!

If we lost we would be bad losers as well....

I`m a wigan fan who was disappointed with our performance but did not think we would walk it.I had a cheeky tenner on leeds to win by 11-15 points at 10-1 thanks to that late penalty i had a nice touch.

I think Leeds were by far the better side and I thought that last night's performance was one of Leeds best.
I am not quite sure how Wigan were worth 28 points.

Some Wigan fans, not all, are making the mistake of blaming any defeat on a bad performance from their team rather than being beaten by a better team. Maybe this stems from an attitude within the club which was epitomised by Gorilla Wane yesterday. His interview on Sky was in stark contrast to Brian Macs who praised Wigan and their qualities. Wane could only tell us that Wigan had saved their worst performance of the season for the biggest stage, not a mention of how good Leeds were. Since Wigans revival over the last three seasons we have met them every year in the Challenge Cup, that we have won two of those three encounters has obviously not registered in the Gorillas head. He seems to live in a parallel universe with a large number of Wigan fans where nobody can possibly be as good as their team. When he checks the record books and finds that Wigan didn't make Wembly in 2010 or 2012 because they were beaten by Leeds his brain will not be able to compute the fact and he'll go into meltdown again.

It's been amazing how lucky we have been in the last 8 years as whenever we seem to win a big game in a knockout stage or in a final, it's due to the opposition playing badly. We're such an average team who just happen to consistently beat teams who are just having a bad game.

This is what grates a bit. There are 2 teams on every pitch and each are trying to stop the other playing while creating room for themselves to use the ball. Far too many Wiganers don't seem to recognise that a poor result can in any way be influenced by the opposition, instead putting it down to an inexplicably poor performance, at a loss to explain how this could possibly have happened to them. If they take a look back over the last 5 or 6 years they'll notice this particular Leeds team has a happy knack of putting the brakes on their more favoured opposition on the big day.

When we took a hammering from Wigan last month, I think most Leeds fans were happy to accept that it was a combination of a poor Leeds performance and Wigan at their brilliant best.

And they now have the August Bank Holiday weekend free for more needlework......

To be fair they did play poorly but like some have said the opposition deserve at least some credit for that. Think it showed just how key Tommy Leuluai is to their team, perhaps the biggest key, Tomkins will do great individual stuff but Leuluai will have the team going great in games. Charnley shouldn't have played either, one of the biggest worries i had facing Wigan was any chance he or Tomkins could get a sniff of open field or gap in the line on kick returns, but he was clearly not fit.

Congrats on your win, I hope we meet again in the play offs.

Why do you like getting beat,

Well I hope they enjoy looking at an empty trophy cabinet and reminissing about all those meaninless thumpings they gave everyone through the course of the SL season.


Woops, I nearly forgot about polishing the hubcap. Sorry.

In the second half especially, Leeds were virtually error free. Wigan were unforced error ridden, so SW does have a point. Having said that, he's the boss and I agree he should have been more magnanimous in defeat.

By and large I have always got on well with most wigan supporters, as a youngster years ago we used to cross the Pennines to go to central park and stand on the terraces behind the posts. I think it may have been a children's section, people were always friendly enough. God it seems light years away just rememberd some of the wigan team. Boston,Dave Bolton,Brian Mc Tigue, they were a superb side. So we got one or two hammerings. A set of fans I do not care for are the Hull Fc crowd,I have personally witnessed far too many incidents from them. Whilst. I have never encountered any problems with the wigan crowd.

I too always got on well with Wigan folk.I think its just the last 2-3 years and especially when games have been played on a saturday when they have travelled over and had a few drinks.Although even so I have still had some good craic with them in the taps after the game

Deep down we know that we are the 2 biggest clubs in the game, and that naturally leads to a certain hostility but a grudging (and maybe well hidden) respect. I've never had a problem with Leeds fans although you probably have a few pondlife following you similar to the idiot in front of me on Saturday who was f-ing and jeffing throughout in the ear of kids and old ladies.