All is doom and gloom on both the Wigan and Redvee forums this weekend after their respective losses to HKR and Wires.
Majority view is that they are teams in decline, one dimensional, poorly coached and suffering from poor recruitment. Sound familiar?
By contrast, their perception of us (aside from the usual moans about alleged salary cap breaches) is of a team on the up, ambitious, good planning for next season and excellent incoming coach.
It’s interesting how much difference a single week can make - no doubt things will turn around again if Wigan beat us in the forthcoming game, and if Saints win the cup, but if they don’t then well….
Could it be our year after all?

In my view we are a team with enough trump cards in it to win any match through individual moments of magic. I'm encouraged that we have had a few great team performances so far this season as well. BUT I'm just waiting for the next pathetic performance a la the semifinal or Huddersfield a couple of weeks before.

I don't view saints or Wigan as better teams than us this season, they really aren't that special and whilst Catalans look very good we have beaten them twice so far. Hull and Cas can beat anyone and Hull KR are playing some great rugby. Overall I'd be feeling quite confident of lifting the big one if we didn't have those terrible performances in us, what's worse is that we seem resigned to those poor performances when we start badly.

The perspective is that ultimately when it comes to the business end saints or Wigan will very likely win it, as usual.

After the last 2 pathetic play off exits I dont trust Price to take us all the way. We're better as underdogs so if we end up getting Hull KR at home in the first round, I'd myself more than Wigan away.

To quote Ian Hunter - Once bitten, Twice shy

That being said, I'll serve my own portion of humble pie if I am proven wrong.

Interesting that you put our play off performances at prices door and not the players, I think that they checked out after the cc win over saints and were content with the cc trophy and saw it as a sucessfull season, unfortunately that's sums our team up. The tail off to the end of seasons were reminiscent of Smith's last few years and the cross over there is the players ?

How many of our players would be more than good squad players in the sucessfull Leeds saints n Wigan sides ? Clark widdop n maybe Currie... That for me is the main contributing factor to us falling short of grand final success, were missing personality's and leaders in key positions within the team.

This is a major issue with Wire. It was mentioned before the Challenge Cup semi-final by one of the BBC pundits (might have been Jamie Peacock, I can't recall) that we are great frontrunners, but if we go one or two scores down, we rarely come back from it. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened in the cup game - went behind early, body language was then awful, didn't have the composure to turn it around. It's a longstanding problem that needs fixing.

It's because he's at the helm. It's his job to sort us out for these occasions be it play off knock out matches or first home game with fans for 15 months. It's almost as if we need a sports psychologist when we have a big match where we're considered favourites. The lackadaisical mindset then turns to frustration and we fall short.

I take your point about the players but it's ultimately the managers job to plan every aspect of the game. Defeats are always going to happen, it's the manner in which we get beat that is galling sometimes and unfortunately for Price, the buck stops with him when it's becomes a theme.

It's not so much perspective, its recency bias. If we win a few games people will be saying Price is pretty good after all, there will be threads blowing smoke up the bootys of various players, duckie will say we will win the lot.

I remember all during Brian McDermott's reign as Leeds coach their fans wanted him out most of the regular seasons and they often won the Grand Finals. Wigan fans used to moan about Wane when he was there too in seasons when they beat us in GFs.

"and you climb up the mountains and fall down the holes", apt words from Hunter that sum up being a Wire.

I think you some it up quite well. The problem with us is consistency. If you go back and look at most of the key games over the past 4 years we seem to struggle when we're the favourites and the pressure is on. Saints in the CC final, Saints in the play off semi where Lineham scored, last week, in the CC last season however when we're favourites we just buckle under pressure, the Cas CC game a few weeks ago, the Cas play off game last year, Catalans in the CC final, Salford last season in the CC. It's like when this weight of expectation isn't upon us we turn up and pull out a great performance, I hope it's not an arrogance that we expect to just turn up and against these teams and win but it's definitely something that needs addressing and quickly.

It is the problem with all teams. No team is really consistent. It is why sport is fun. If all games were won by the highest rank side it just wouldn't be worth watching. We all notice Wire so much cos it we scrutinise them and expect so much. There is only Wigan ... when they had their pick of the best rugby players in the world who really got close to consistency.

Not looking past the Leigh game.Few England call ups and they’ve run some teams close this season so potential banana skin so could be back to Price out if they get their first win.

Totally agree. We will be very short of troops and they will probably have nobody missing. However I am sure that our "supporters" will be understanding if we lose!!

Fair point.

Depends in the manner in which we lose. The match preceding the Salford Semi, where the young lads gave it a go and came up short was a loss I could happily stomach. A loss similar to the Huddersfield home a few weeks ago would make it very hard to digest!

If some people are happy regardless of performance, good on them. To each their own I guess

Yes I remember the Salford game well. On paper we had a very weak team and expectations were pretty low. We got points on the board but just got pipped. Riley Dean played well and Latu had a rare appearance and looked OK. Loved the effort.

Absentees or not, its a typical summary of our recent times if we beat Saints then lose to Leigh....

There's talk of the England game not going ahead now. Apparently clubs are currently having a 'crisis meeting',

Is the crisis meeting being chaired by McManus and just about Warrington faking injuries and the momentum rule not being used for Makinson's try, thus cheating Saints out of a well deserved two points?

Where's the All Stars squad?

They're still ringing round to see if anyone wants a game.

Shocking

I'm washing my hair Friday night, so that's me out.

I think it's a reflection of just how poor the standard of SL is this year.
On paper we arguably have a team to compete with any other, BUT......
How many of our players are playing near or at their potential?
Widdop, King, Coops, Hill, Mamo possibly Ratch - and none of them consistently.
That's a coaching issue for me.

Agreed.

Putting a bunch of players from different clubs together for warm up game, noting recent Covid outbreaks in SL teams, is pretty shocking too.

According to Dave Woods a number of clubs are refusing to release their players to appear for the All Stars. They've all known about this game for months.
Another example of the clubs having way too much power.
Could this happen in any other sport but RL?