I think ,in all fairness ,that Wigan by their own standards have not been brilliant for a couple of years , but they & our other nearest & dearest who play in red & white know how to win the games that matter. We are now in a dog fight against Hull to finish top while Wigan have the easy game of Les Cats at home. Fair play to Wigan, it was evident they wanted the win more from the opening try & were making many more yards in possession & was it 3 tries with a 12 man side ? What a joke that was !
I do believe though that there were some strange refereeing decisions both on & off the field, but i am delighted that sky got the result they wanted.

After consideration I have to agree...
Would Wane allow the Pies to let slip a 14 point lead....?
I think not. There in lies the issue once again. TS is responsible for mismanagement.
Once again he sits there with that smug stubborn grin on his face.

Only 4 points ahead with a penalty award...2 points on offer with the ball back either way...plus the draw is all we need to win the LLS.
What does game management suggest...yes take the loving 2 points on offer.
Who's to blame...TS

Please lets not blame some ridiculous sky theory. Wigan were better from minute one...lets just hope that's our choke out of the way

said last season we shave got rid.... actually we should have got rid the season before.

One thing you can absolutely guarantee from Smith Warrington these days... put us in a big game, watch the oppo get a head of steam up and watch us collapse.

Big game bottlers..

TS was once again out witted by opposition coach and players, which is inexcusable particularly being 14 pts ahead and an extra man. Persisting with Evans on the wing has cost us another big game. Once again the half backs go missing in action and as for Ratchford his positioning at full back for short kick throughs is appalling, he is often in the wrong place and cant get across the line to cover his team mates. TS has three games to prove he is up to the job going forwards, history is history and I applaud his efforts in getting us up the ladder. If we don't get the golden egg this time then he has to go!

There are a number of decisions that the management team have made over the last couple of years that have question marks against them. I have a long list but I will just have a go at a few of them.
A) Why give Gidley squad No 1 and play him at FB in pre season friendlies then he never sets foot in that position. I know we had a good start to the season with Ratchford out injured and Gidley at 6 but that one does baffle me. It looks like he intended to play Gidley at FB but changed his mind after week 4.
B) I am a bit disappointed about the use of younger players in the 17. How will Wilde. Julien, Philbin and others gain the number of games if the are only in the 17 as a last resort. Fair play Toby King has been given a decent run but Patton and others need circa 50 SL games before they start to be reliable standard players (G King is just getting there) but they will never get that when they are only used as a last resort. Why play Jack Johnson in one of the last games last year and then only give him a go this year when everybody else is injured.
C) I know we have to manage the squad under the salary cap but I think the squad has been mis managed. Easy with hindsight I know but we went into this season with some players with high risk ratings. Laithwaite and Harrison were pretty much gone for the season and we knew that last September. Dodds, B Evans and Wheeler must have had a high risk rating based on previous injury record. Then we have 3 wingers that throughout the season have had big question marks over them (Penny, Ormsby and Lineham). And to finish it we have gambled on Cox and Bailey.
In short if we knew that Laithwaite and Harrison were both unlikely to play why gamble on so many other players. If you are going to gamble at least have faith in the youth players - to not play Sam Wilde against saints was very poor.

All easy with Hindsight but I have to question some of the decision making.

If we fail to win the Grand Final we need a root and branch clear out of a lot of the back room team which seems to be growing daily. Harsh but fair.

Simon Moran deserves better for his unwavering input.

For some reason Tony Smith seems to be obsessed with the idea of a team of play anywhere utility players who can be interchanged at will & still produce 5 star performances. Several back up plans wouldn't be a bad idea either for when plan A goes pear shaped.

Maybe for next season we could be called the Warrington Square Pegs.

i REALLY REALLY REALLY want a new coach for next season.

Its no fun watching a team of flat track bullies that cant win big games.

He needs to start rewarding form. Some players know they are going to be picked every week regardless.

A good idea in theory, but not one you can implement at the sharp end of the season when you've got a patched up squad.

Far more complex than your simplified analysis would indicate. With regard to the salary cap, the club have been very sensible with players like Grix persuaded to retire to the back room staff to make space. Laithwaite has gone and probably Harrison, too: B Evans and Wheeler have been given chance to revcover from injury: the club could have just sacked all four if they simply ruthlessly managed the cap: I'm pleased that my club treats its players fairly. Gidley may have been signed as a FB but as he is clearly the best 6 at the club so why wouldn't we play him there? Jack Jones got an early game this year and then got injured. The only serious mistake has been the signing of Lineham, who has not responded to TS's man-management in the way that, say, Lee Briers did. That's as much Lineham's fault as Smith's. Plenty of young players have had runs this year, but you won't turn a 19 year old into a solid SL player if you play him every week before he has the mental and physical capacity to handle it.

He stuck by Cull for a very long time and Cull had nowhere near the success that Smith has had. This forum in January had us finishing outside the top 4, if not the top 8 and if we got a lucky draw, we might make the cup semi. Hindsight is easy, but we have done remarkably well in light of fans' expectations. Now, expectations might have been too low and some would have wanted change last season, but overall we have done better than most of our fans expected. Sport is sport (copyright, adapted from Theresa May) and it doesn't always go the way you want or expect. I'm not giving up until we have not won the Grand Final.

I don't disagree but the period of time now without winning anything is becoming (become?) longer.

Smith has had unbelievable support from the club on and off the field with the sole aim of becoming Grand Final winners.

You can't sack a player if he gets injured whilst playing or training for the club.

However the attitude of the club to an injured player who still has an injury when his contract expires may well be rather different.

Whilst I agree to a point, as in, sometimes it just comes down to luck 'on the day' or the bounce of the ball, what worries me is I've yet to see us convincingly close down a game this year. We seem skilled at throwing them away. See Cas in Newcastle, last week's debacle, the effing CC Final, and many others. You can't rely totally on luck, and when it comes down to it we're just not ruthless enough. When Flower walked on Friday and a few minutes later Tomkins had his hissy fit, we should've smelled blood and put them to the sword.

I still think we're missing the winning mentality of Morley, Hodgson et al. Yeah, even a few years down the line. There's fewer and fewer players in our squad who are used to winning big games, IE finals.

The last i read was that Wheeler was joining the Canadians for next season along with Laithewaite.

thats correct, which is a big bloody gamble by the canadians, eh.

For me, Friday was worse than a 80-0 hammering.

I've never asked for the sacking of TS but I did on Friday.

I'm also not a huge fan of Kevin Penny but it's clear to see that Russell and Evans on the wings are not effective as Lineham and Penny were early on.

Ratchford is as brilliant as he is awful, in equal measure. I actually think he has cost us the LLS and Cup with his abysmal handling.

I'm finding it very hard to pluck up the enthusiasm to travel to Hull.

I believe free coach travel is being offered to Hull.

Yeah, I know, but I can't help my optimistic disposition. It's the losses against the big teams that do worry me though. What we did to Wigan when Mossop ended up throwing the ball forward at one point and Atkins scored the try through his legs (same match, I think) is how we need to put them to the sword. We haven't done it in a game that matters though...

I agree, that was worse than the 80 nil, it felt like being kicked repeatedly in the nuts with stupidity.

We all knew that despite that one cock up against Catalan, he had an 8/10 performance but he wouldn't make next weeks team.

It makes you wonder why he's been reluctant to go back to what was working so well at the purple patch, start Of The year, julien in the team, revans at centre shutting stuff down really REALLY well, penny playing brilliantly out on the wing with his best mate sandow being super creative(i still think this may be why Sandow isn't playing as well, he's ed off at Penny's daft exclusion)

I'm not going this week, I was going to, at ten pm on Friday I'd already got the day off for an early start, the more I've thought about this over the week end, I've the repeated kicks the balls have took effect, I've seen us slide to the end of the season before and it will take a monumental effort by what players we have left to change things around, And I'm not convinced it's at all possible.

Roger if you're reading this, we've done our bit for the #hardwired family this year, the set of players and coaching staff have failed.

PS what happened to the hardwired fluff from the start Of The year, no dj, no lights, no selfie section, no interviews pre match, there's no saxophonist, I've not been any Of The walking beer pourers again. Has it all gone away? Or am I missing it?

Sorry if my post came across all wrong. I am not proposing we jettison an player the moment he picks up a big injury simply saying that if we know we have a couple of forwards that are likely to be out for the best part of 12 months then why take additional gambles.
When it comes to the pack we went into the season with Laithwaite and Harrison unlikely to be available until at least July. Dodds was recovering from surgery after the NRL grand final and B Evans was struggling. All forwards with question marks against them. We then pick up Bailey and Cox who even the most optimistic would say there was a gamble there.
There was no spare capacity in the pack. Currie and Hill have played a big number of games.
Lets get it right. jullien only played a few games earlier in the year because Hughes had broke his arm. Philbin is only in the 17 because Westwood is out. They are not given a chance on merit and / or to give somebody a rest, they are thrown in as a last resort.
Like I say though. Easy with hindsight. I just feel like the transition from the cup winning team has not been the best and when you have the likes of Leeds and Saints that are also in a similar transition we have missed an opportunity to have a period of relative dominance. Saints and Leeds will not be below us for long.
Sorry. Just having a whinge. I hate losing to Wigan like that.

Julien was playing off the bench from the start of the year,

Great post I rekon that's how most feel, I had a good think over the weekend but I've deceided not to bother going to Hull I honestly see this game following a similar pattern as the challenge cup final and also the other occasions we have played Hull this season.
Very close for long periods and also we will be the better side at certain points but we will ultimately lose due to poor game management and square pegs in round holes coming back to bite us again.. So that's another kick in the balls I can do without so it's the TV on mute for me Friday night. (According to the Facebook Barmy Army page that's me not a true fan

)
Funny you should mention the pre match #Hardwired razzmatazz stuff ,you're right that seems to have disappeared as quickly as our game management ... Not only that but I don't remember hearing a peep out of Rodger Draper since before the cup final..