GAME ON : Wigan Warriors v St. Helens - 19:45:00

GENERAL CHAT ABOUT THE GAME, BUILD UP, THE ACTION AS IT HAPPENS AND AFTERMATH BELOW.

This could be the penultimate derby for Wane, so I'm going for a Saints win.

Nice to see ratboy going in with the feet as usual

Saints without Taia, Percival, Barba and (everyone keeps forgetting) Walmsley.

That’s some serious talent not on the pitch. Reflected in a stilted attack, I think. But the young replacements are doing a good solid job in defence thus far.

Saints missing bona fide class players and still winning. Wigan missing nobodies and using it as an excuse

Regards

King James

England Captain?

An brilliant performance given we had 4 important players missing. Should definitely have scored a lot more points but defensively outstanding yet again. I got laughed at when I said Thompson should be in the England squad at the start of the season but yet again he proved why he’s the best prop in SL. If it wasn’t for Barba and Roby he’d be in MOS contention. Roby once again brilliant, best hooker in SL history.

O’Loughlin certainly not a nobody but well past his best. Players missing for Saints definitely better than those missing for Wigan.

saints had a whopping 4 players missing, 3 of which were probably rested and it's almost enhanced as a bloody injury crisis !!! Wigan with escare Burgess gildart lockers Williams Farrell missing, that's off the top of my head. That said Wigan were absolutely putrid. I think when escare returns they need to get Tomkins into the halves as he is the only sign of life they have.

Long way to go yet though, top 4 looks like it might be as it is now with maybe 2 3 4 just to shape out.

Not much creativity in that Wigan side they seem to rely on Tomkins all the time and Bateman to go forward and those 2 players are missing for next season. Powell is a terrible scrum half running sideways all the time and his passes have no impact at all.

As for Saints there fitness and mobility is the stalwart of there defence, wigan only managed one clean break all night, saints made loads of breaks to be dominant but couldn't finish them off with a bigger score line, thought they were worth 2 scores more.

Good entertaining game, an excellent performance by Saints I must say, top drawer

wigan's attack is awful. Hull played a much stronger saints side last week with 8 of their first choice 17 missing, lost connor in the first half, had kelly playing busted and still managed to score 4 tries

That's why most non deluded Wigan fans can't wait Wane to go he hold back this Wigan team so much in attack

The Pies saviour, Greenwood looked just like he did playing for us, ordinary. LMS had him in his pocket all night. Looks like an overweight plodder to me. The wigan coaching staff have their work cut out with that one

Regards

King James

Explain why you didn’t score more points in this brilliant performance.

8 missing you say? I hadn't heard this

Wigan had 7 missing and lost by 8.
Hull had 8 missing and lost by 16.

The difference is your 7 are all average. Hulls missing players weren’t. Plus we didn’t rest our best players against hull because we knew it would be a tough game unlike Wigan away

Regards

King James

It was a brilliant defensive performance, it was also a very good performance in terms of effort and drive in attack. What we really lacked was brain smarts close to the tryline.

We lacked creativity, that could open up a very good wigan defense. Whilst wigan were stilted in attack they have a defensive line that is well drilled and they give there all and will not give up a lost cause like some teams.

They have a defense that is at least 50 better than their nearest competitor. Against a standard side those breaks by saints would have been tries.

It was a good game with tight defenses and whilst we were comfortable, it showed were without our top players we would have may be had a tighter league.

She's had a bad few days