I almost certain his break would have led to a try if Welsby had been correctly penalised for that ridiculous lie-on. A sin-bin if ever there was one.

Musgrove didn't come back on

If golden point had gone the other way, this forum would have been full of post mortem threads saying "Wire will [inever[/i win a Grand Final until we sort out X, Y and Z" with lists of players to be booted out.

And also "Saints fans would never accept this situation - why do we?"

But it didn’t

Wire can be better. But Saints have considerable power (that has missed lots of games this season) so to expect us to win easily is plain unrealistic. The side that Saints put out last night would not have finished sixth in the league & would be hard to handle by any side. Saints were red hot in the first half & we did well to claw back the ten point lead. They showed a bit more power than us & we showed a bit more skill.

Whilst I nurse my postgame hangover I have to to admit that I gave my eyes a bit of rub reading a couple of posts on here this morning.

Criticism is fine but credit where it's due as Smithy said this Saints team isn't a sixth placed team and to beat them four times in a season is an achievement that should be applauded. To win a knockout game where the whole season is on the line coming from a two score deficit (three for the win) in forty minutes of rugby is brilliant to be pegged back in the last minute but to win in Golden Point shows that this team is full of the Right Stuff.

Sure we can look to improve in areas and will need our A Game against KR but really what's no to like?

Yeah i fully agree we needed this game to take us forward. More battle hardened for the next fight.
Bit concerned with Duftys knee, he clearly hurt it, hope it was just a stinger and not like last time when he played the rest of the game and made it worse.

My original post was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek as a pee-take on Saints, but it seems to have turned into a useful constructive criticism thread!

The impressive thing is, that looking at those two teams on paper at the start of this season, any RL fan/pundit would be championing the amount of World Class Saints players on the field, and how Warrington would have to play their absolute best game of the season to win it.

We didn't play that well, in the end. But this Burgess team can play at C+ and still hang in there and sneak a win when it counts. This is the sort of performance that Saints or Wigan would be capable of against us when it counted in years gone by. Seems we are now able to match that.

As you say, what's not to like? It almost feels [ibetter[/i to put Saints out with an average performance when [ithey[/i were at their best!

Sorry SC but you are behind the times. Saints fans have had more fits of the vapours in the last 2 seasons than my Aunt Fanny , and she is flakier than a field full of flakes in flake county.

I suppose my only criticism from yesterday (apart from 6th tackle kicks) is that we looked (from a spectators POV) to be out-powered in the front row forwards, especially in the first half, although the yardage stats look similar for both teams. Can't fault the efforts of Philbin and Yates as 'smaller' front rowers but wonder whether Harrison, and more so, Vaughan and Musgrove didn't deliver their normal impact. Against KR on Friday, or Wigan if we play well enough to win on Friday, we'll need a significant uplift from the front row. And I'm not talking about effort, there's no criticism in that department, but rather impact and energy from our big men. We know they can do it so they collectively need to deliver their biggest performance of the season Friday night.

thought Philbin was immense.... and was absolutely key to the win...putting pressure on the kicker that led to out on the full and the williams drop goal.

I think we desperately need an ‘on it’ Philbin. Other than Walker we’ve lacked a bit of oomph from the bench at times.

In fairness to Vaughan it was his first game for a month. You can be as fit as you can but nothing beats match fitness

Interesting to see who SB chooses as starting props on Friday. I would not be surprised to see Vaughn start with either Harrison or Musgrove, and whoever doesn't make that call will be on the bench with Philbin. Slowing down HKR's go forward and neutralising Lewis and May, I'm sure will be areas of focus.

It'll be vaughan and yates. I've goy a sneaking feeling musgrove picked up an injury, that could be the only reason he didn't get brought back on

I was worried that I had put a hex on him by bigging him up and saying it was a no-brainer he played over Crowther. Pleased that he delivered again, with the most metres among our forwards and the plays you mention in extra time.

Big Sam has installed a belief that we can beat anyone. The lads will go there full of confidence knowing we are the only team to win at Wigan this season and only us and Catalans have won at Hull KR.

I can’t wait. Now The Wire.

A great win and plenty of areas ot improve.

1. Composure playing the ball ( 2 errors)

2.some poor defence reads leading to saints first 2 tries and we gave them a 5 to 3 overlap for their last try.

3. Tai is a dead end to attacks on the right.

But I'm not being churlish. The desire and fight was there to be seen.

I’ve got a feeling Musgrove didn’t come back on because Sam didn’t think he deserved to come back on and I think he’ll make way for Crowther on Friday.

I don't think so to be honest, Burgess said at one point Musgrove has been great for them......and he was so bog standard and still playing really low minutes. He doesn't really have a big impact for his size, but he comes on does a half decent job and allows our other forwards yo hace a break and not be over played.

Not so sure it was exactly put muscled.
Well over the 84 mins.
I would say Saints loaded up. and went to get the unassailable lead perhaps hoping to kick us deep and hold on, and have us make mistakes trying to pull it around by going away from the process.
However us scoring in the last play of the 40 wiped out the advantage.

Vaughan was un-Vaughan-like, perhaps edgy about being over aggressive or clumsy high in the tackles, and perhaps not battle ready after his lengthy absence. A muted impression in the first half, but just about holding fort, as did Musgrove, until our other spelled props returned.

Yates was constantly hitting them with hard runs and the spelling of Philbin kept him punching, Harrison worked hard but seemed to fatigue at the back of his stints.

We can’t afford to let KR hit us with 3 tries in the first half as Saints did, it would be draining to recover that against them.
I’m hoping the extra piece of missing Vaughan, will be the difference on Friday.
Although he’s done it recently, we can’t rely on Musgrove finding another level.

https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... y-off-win/ I am not usually a stats man but a comparison of the stats indicate that we were not out-muscled as much as we seem to think. As normal we fans tend to be a bit more critical of our own players. The tackle bust stats 50/22 are huge. I was one to suggest we had been outmuscled ... must watch the game again. Key Warrington Wolves stats from St Helens play-off win | Warrington Guardian Warrington Wolves’ dramatic eliminator victory over St Helens was a nip-and-tuck thriller – and the game stats reflect that.

https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... y-off-win/ I am not usually a stats man but a comparison of the stats indicate that we were not out-muscled as much as we seem to think. As normal we fans tend to be a bit more critical of our own players. The tackle bust stats 50/22 are huge. I was one to suggest we had been outmuscled ... must watch the game again. Key Warrington Wolves stats from St Helens play-off win | Warrington Guardian Warrington Wolves’ dramatic eliminator victory over St Helens was a nip-and-tuck thriller – and the game stats reflect that.

we were outmuscled in one way, first half, they were making 50/60 metres, probably after contact, and finishing around the 40m line, or further, and then were putting up bombs to try and trap dufty or compete on the 10.

however for the most part we defended him, and got in the way much much better than we have all year, glad to see we have improved on that.

second half we turned up the heat and they weren't making as many 50 metre returns, couple of times we pinned them in their half and they were kicking from their 40, literally that lazy pass from clark for ashton's second was down to us smashing them repeatedly and knackering them out, They were clearly fatigued and making poor decisions, that little kick form dodds, the offload from knowles under the sticks, and how much clark lost his nut after that.

yes we do need to improve for this week, but do not be mistaken, second half, we were different gravy and worked our way back into that game through relentless process.

Complain all you want about drinkwater's kicking game, it went where we wanted it, so the line was there and intact.

Dont be looking for faults, be proud of what we did. Very un Warrington, and that game will be a massive confidence booster.

Re : outmuscled, Burgess himself said at Half time.

“We were losing the physicality, that’s the Saints trademark for the last five six years. They were just beating us to the punch with it and winning the field position battle.

“We just weren’t making great choices. We could have been better but we went in at 16-10 thanks to George Williams."