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

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

Thankfully, we won’t have to hear Wigan and Grand Final in the same sentence from their fans for the next few weeks at least. Saints were nowhere near their best and still won easily. The shield very close to being wrapped up now.

Wigan were very disappointing.
After their recent run I thought we were in for a close game.

Having said that Saints defence was very good, Williams the main threat but he didn't get a chance.

Thought Saints were very scratchy with the ball, should have scored a few more but Wigan defended well at times, Pretty impressed with the young kids in the pack.

But a very, very average Wigan team put away without really getting out of first gear.

So that’s the supposed 3 next best teams all demolished over the last 3 weeks with an average of 31 points scored and only 4 tries conceded in total.

Didn’t even need to get out of first gear to beat Wigan. We defo need some harder games as we will just end up getting complacent

We could have a combined Warrington/Hull/Wigan side to play our depleted side, we might struggle to win that one though.

Not sure why Saints fans were expecting a close game. We’re four props down from our squad from the start of the year plus O’Loughlin and Greenwood. We lost Bullock in the first half, had Leuluai go off after ten minutes (although he did come back) and we’re playing a team who would be superior even had we been at full strength.

Men against boys (literally in most cases in the forwards).

Wigan are shocking in every aspect of the game. Their pack is woeful, their halves terrible and their outside backs look ready for the scrap yard. How they've won the last 5 games is beyond me. That game was a 60 point drubbing brought closer by it being a derby, some 'look at me I'm controversial' refereeing from Mr Thaler and Wigan employing an 80 minute niggle fest to keep the score down. Powell, Williams and Farrell in particular just grubbed their way through the entire game, hands in all over the place, flops, WWE elbow drops from the top rope, knees... Sam Powell is perhaps the worst hooker in Super League, just a terrible player. He appealed for a penalty after just about every play Wigan had. How Thaler let him get away with it all game is beyond me.

Also shocking is the medical team at Wigan. Tommy L is an obvious hard-man, but tackled Regan Grace's knee with his head. Poor Tommy was in Disneyland shadow boxing Buzz Lightyear and left the field being propped up by the physio. Fifteen minutes later he comes back on looking like your average lad about town at 3am, getting involved in a tackle and literally staggering sidewards in a daze as he tried to stand at marker, ending up three feet away from where he was supposed to be, as if he'd spent the 15 minutes running round a stick. Being the hard nut he is, he finished the game, but there is no chance he passed any concussion test. It was blatantly obvious they were going to lose the game comfortably, why not just keep him off?

Saddened have you finished booing your coach yet because he wants to go back to Aus? You pathetic little man

To be fair, it’s a decent assessment. Although he did forget to mention the most overrated winger in SL, Burgess. For every walk in try he scores he concedes 3. He has the defensive awareness of someone who has never played the game before

sounded a great close game, would have made great tv viewing