The difference in defence between Wigan and the Eels against the Broncos was enormous.

I do not understand how full time pros with professional coaches cannot play to a structure for more than one tackle a game. Poorer athletes are understandable, but regulation plays seem beyond most SL teams. Perhaps not helped by the generally rubbish defence.

Proper tackling is a dying art, coaches/players still can't fathom that a bit of arm flapping up top isn't going to bring down the modern rugby league player with the hugely increased upper body strength to get away from that.
For all the stopping the offload this type of tackle is supposed to prevent (it rarely does) players makes easy yards/break yackles even with 2 and three 'tacklers' in attendance.
Watching Hull last Thursday we couldn't tackle a hot dinner. You commit one player to leg tackle and though they might offload it's still 12v12, whilst it's not always easy or how it works far too often arm flapping by big forwards allows easy metres AND offloads. It's bloody pathetic to watch!

Not seen anything from Warrington yet to suggest they're a shoo in. Let's not forget that against Leeds they were second best all night, rode their luck and we're awarded a try that should never have been (sounds a lot like last night). Two ref assisted wins is not the same as 'finding a way to win' or whatever. No doubt the quality is there, but that first try last night gets sent up as no try and it stays as no try.

I think we are far too early to say anything definitive about any team! We have seen plenty of times before that a club doing well over the first 6-8 weeks doesn't win them anything. Just as it is hard to see the bottom two being Leeds-Huddersfield.

Not to mention the story that injuries could play. All it takes is a couple of players to go down for a significant period for it all to change!

Last night Warrington played without the spine of 6,9 and 13 (Gidley, Clark and Westwood).

With those back in, the defence and attack is much improved.

Salford tries coming off being piggy backed up field yet somehow people think the ref was helping Wire ???

Both sides scored plenty of points off consecutive penalties. Wire got three in a row IIRC that took them the length of the field in the first half for one of their tries.

Credit to Hicks, lot of whistle but he was at least being consistent throughout the game. He set down the standards early on, and neither team were prepared to stick to them and listen to what they were being told.

Agreed. although Hicks was a bit whistle happy, he was consistent throughout the game, which is what most fans moan about. I thought he also dealt with the game well, by sin binning the two players (Although Currie maybe a bit harsh) and it stopped the game for boiling over.

I thought it was a good game and draw would have been the fairer result, but that's the difference between a team going to the top 4 and a team going for the top 8, just a little bit smarter and more clinical.

IMO Salford lost the game, by giving away two penalties when they had the ball, also should have kicked at least one drop goal, i would also be very disappointed with the FB who made no attempt to catch the ball from Sandows penalty.

Both teams have started well and look like top 8 team, along with Widnes, if these two finish in the top 8, who drops out?

I might have spoken to soon about Salford

Thought the Currie binning was absolutely spot on. He knew what he was doing in trying to draw a reaction out of Murdoch-Masila, and that turned what was a nothing incident into a flare-up that could have got out of hand.

He'd been at it most of the game as well. Talented player, but I do hope he isn't developing into a bit of a big time Charlie off the back of the praise he got last year.

I agree about the Currie binning, it wasn't the worst offence going, but it's crept into the game, it needs to be stamped out,it's bad sportsmanship,against the spirit of the game and in a situation like last night it could and did escalate things if tensions are running high.
And it did calm things down and led to an exciting finish, without Hicks taking control then it could have been a niggle-fest for the remainder of it.
Although why Murdoch-Masila wasn't binned too is baffling.

I think Murdoch-Masila probably got some credit off Hicks for not reacting to it other than a little bit of a chest bumping square off. Carney was the one who came running into an incident that didn't involve him, grabbed a Wire player and cocked the arm back ready to throw one.

No problem with the Currie binning as long as it is applied consistently.

Glad Currie showed a bit of fire in his belly, its about the only thing missing from his game.

I too thought Hicks did OK. Not the message you would deduce from the younger posters on another thread. One such poster couldn't watch anymore the reffing was so bad.

Currie inadvertently won us the game in those 2 incidents he had with Murdoch-Masila, Salford game plan out the window, more interested in settling scores and getting into the biff. Up to that point they were in control, one thing Wire have never been is intimidated, in fact we are probably the kings of roughhouse tactics (rough not sh-thouse, that's Wigan)

Got in their heads, won us the game.

I actually thought that M-M had been trying to intimidate Currie from quite early on and Currie showed he wasn't going to be intimidated. The sin bin did confuse me though;
1) if he was right to bin Currie then M-M should have gone, he was seen to indulge in foul play and was penalised which in my view was more serious than the hair ruffling...not sure what message the ref was trying to send out
2) I think the whole hair ruffling after a dropped ball etc needs to be quashed as being childish so in the long run although unfair may be of benefit
Thought Currie was immense (not a big time Charlie) and am I the only one to be reminded of Sculthorpe (P not D) who also was reluctant to take a backward step from a confrontation?

If you tried to wind Sculthorpe up you usually got a smack to the chops for your troubles, you could in them days.
Farrell tried it and came off 2nd best.

After today's event's Roversmad



(in no particular order)
Salford
Wakefield
Hull KR

I have not a clue who the 4th team might be !!!!

I was very proud of Currie last night, M-M was trying to rattle him all game but in the end it was M-M that backed away from the confrontation when it boiled over.

Currie knew exactly what he was doing and it worked. After that incident we seemed to wake up and started playing with passion.

I thought Hicks was poor and don't buy in to the "at least he was consistent" stuff.

The problem in super league is that players get used to relying on penalties to score a try. When the internationals come around at the end of the season, the referees (even the UK ones) completely change the rules and the benchmark for a penalty becomes much higher. The Super League players struggle because they have been conditioned to rely on penalties to score tries, and have not been conditioned to be patient and go set for set for 10 minutes waiting for an opportunity.

Hicks blowing his whistle every 2 minutes, not only results in a frustrating game for the fans but also serves to harm our international prospects at club and country level.

As someone has already pointed out, the Brisbane NRL game had 7 penalties in it which is about the same as Hicks gave in the first 15 minutes.

It was noticeable that Silverwood followed a similar policy in the Wire v Wakefield game last week - i do wonder if the referees are having their usual early season clamp down on the back of some edict from Ganson/Sharp/Cummings etc which has blighted previous seasons too.

The sooner referees just let the players get on with it and apply some commonsense to their decisions, the better.

Or alternatively, Currie got himself binned while Murdoch-Masila was smart enough not to react.

If it hadn't been for Carney's stupidity, you would have been a man short for ten minutes. Who knows how that would have changed the game.

could see a big name team fall into the bottom 4 if teams like widnes and fc carry on early season form

Carney also did the same thing as Currie in the first half (worse in fact as he wasnt provoked by somebody cheap-shotting him in the tackle). At the time nobody suggested it was worthy of a sinbin, although ironically if Chris Hill had have shoved him then they would presumably have both been sinbinned??

Absolutely. Firstly I thought that some of the penalties that went Warrington's way were rather generous and smacked of evening up, and secondly he didn't award a try to Salford where nobody had grounded the ball. If refs awarding Warrington tries that shouldn't be given (so far this season it's two in games where the points difference at the end was less than 4 - ergo game clinching bad decisions) isn't helping you out then I can't think what is.

Edited to add that towards the end when the Salford lad nearly had his head taken off on his own line, how no penalty was given I have no idea. Making Salford play from their own line rather than 30 or 40 yards out could have been the difference in the game.

Not saying you couldn't have won without it, but let's not pretend you're not getting the rub of the green.

Don't kid yourself, Currie didn't "get himself" binned he was binned purely because Hicks wanted to stop the game boiling over.

Carney on the other hand did get himself binned, the muppet.