We were out-coached today.

Warrington were ready for us. We had no answer. We didn't get the rub of the green in the first half hour but Warrington looked like they wanted it more and they knew how to get it. Well done Warrington.

As a Wire fan, I thought you'd just edge it, but I said alot depended on the tactics.

On this occassion TS got it spot on - and that's at the core of why we won.

Having said that I still think Brown should be coach of the year for what he's done. Awesome.

I agree Warrington seemed to have a game plan aimed at disrupting the Giants from the start.

I hope that this acts as motivation for the play offs for you.

Tony Smith is a great coach, and we have a lot to thank him for. When he was at the Giants he turned our club around and set us on the right road.

I am pleased for him and Wire, they deserved the win yesterday.

I think wire must have sensed it was going to be their day when there 1st try and our 2 disallowed ones went in their favour early on.

i did say though that wire did to us what we did to Saints and that was obviously targetting our tactics and negating them well.

all down to the coach on the training grounds...not that i am blaming brown

I'd say that was spot on. I'd add to it that your guys didn't have the confidence to then adapt accordingly but I think that was probably partly due to the occasion and partly due to you losing Brown so early in the match, which was a real shame.

must agree i thought smiths tactics were spot on, but then again didnt think browns were that bad, it was as much down to individuals errors as tactics for me. would it have been 1-0 to brown if the 2 video trys had been given i wonder

By tactics, I know that I mean Smith played Wire wide, so making your defence run about. It's the way to undermine that gang tackling thing you've got going on. The last thing any team should be doing when playing Hudds is to go down the middle. Like Saints did (duh!). Smith obviously studied that semi-final and learned how NOT to play Hudds!

Think we helped with that a little bit. Half of the time when we did something with a little more flair, the ball ended up being dropped.

Actually it was McNamara at Bradford who outcoached us with their plays of playing the ball wide early and picking up on the fact we play with a compressed defence.

That was spotted by Paul Cullen who highlighted it on Boots nall after the Bulls game.

It was then followed up by Tony Smith who picked his team to play the same way. Check out the Warrington board on their team selection and it was picked up by the fact that their own fans recognised that is how they would play.

The defeat had very little to do with the coaches. How many tries were down to mistakes by officials did that not hvae an effect on the game.

poor kicking by Hodgson and Fulton who had kicks charged down did that not have an effect on the result.

Our awful kicking game ( how many went straight to touch), players going missing, a serious injury to Brown, all these things changed the game.

I would agree with your assertion that Smith out coached Brown if it was those tactics that won them the game. Unfortunately it was other things that contributed to the defeat.

A nice, long speech, but it remains crystal-clear that Smith out -coached Brown yesterday.

And theres no shame in that mate. Smith did wonders with Hudds and Leeds and now Warrington. He is a fine club coach.

any arguments or evidence to back that up.

And before some smart alec says the result that is neither of the above.

OK, so McNamara outcoached us.

But thanks to McNamara, Fulton's kicks were charged down because they were telegraphed and because Warrington were ready for his bombs. They were on top of him immediately.



Changed the game how? That game was never ours. Warrington dominated from the first minute to the last.



It had an awful lot to do with the coaches. Smith brought something different to the table with Warrington and Brown wanted us to do the same thing we've always been doing.

Look at the way he instructed Briers to keep well away from the ruck when Warrington wanted to kick? Monahan was at first receiver and stood waiting for our forwards to rush him, then he simply passed to Briers who had all the time in the World. They did that to us the whole game.

I'm not knocking Brown per-se. He's a good coach. But Smith is most definitely 1-0 up.

I would agree that Smith out coached Brown.

The 5th and last tackle charges by Mason being totally negated by having Briers as second receiver, rendering them useless being just one case in point.

He also managed to motivate and pump his boys up into putting in the kind of work we normally do whereas we seemed a little off the pace. A terrible start didn't help that, but even that is a reflection of the effort Wire were putting in. There is no shame in being out-coached on the day and I'm sure Brown will be better for it.

I may be a 'smart alec ( sic)' but the result does prove it. That and the fact that we found our way around the Giant's 'umbrella', defended well when we were expected to crumble, largely snuffed out B Hodgson and completely snuffed out Robinson, and, finally, found a gap down the middle againt 'the best defence in SL'. Pretty conclusive.

I think we've all seen better teams lose games on the day, so I don't fully agree with that statement. However, I think Warrington's specialist game plan to nullify our threats and remove our defensive dominance made the result a formality. I think the 'double movement' try was a try, but I also think that we'd have lost anyway. We weren't as prepared as Warrington. We didn't play to nullify their attacking threats and their forwards really muscled up big time. Maybe Smith's experience in the CC told? I don't know. I'm really disappointed, course I am. But Hell, credit where it's due.

not sure wether smith out coached us or not having re watching the game, the tale about run out wide to stop our compressed defence i dont buy that, wire only made 1 break on the edges when briers chipped over, granted hicks try came at the end of that but all the other 3 trys were scored in or around the posts, i think errors by individuals in the middle of the defensive pattern was the problem twice robbo was caught out and mathers squirmed though some ordinary defence from fuey, for me the reason wire won was briers kicking game which was spot on.

I've yet to see the game on TV. I suppose I should watch it again.

That i sthe point i was making earlier . there were many things that happened on the day which led to the result. Very few of these were due to coaching. Did Brown coach our attacking kicks to go straight into touch or Kevin Brown to run into a tackle to knacker his knee or antagonise the officials to be sympathetic to Wire no.

Unfortunately either our too sporting fans or their inferiority complex leads us to conclude that thge other team or coach was better than ours. maybe that is the product of none of us being able to remember us being successful, maybe that affects the players as well. maybe we need to win something to give us a bit of arrogance so that we can finally throw that poor little Giants monkey of our back.

We got to the final because we DESERVED to be there.

We are 4th in the league because we deserve to be ther. No luck, no cheating but honest hard work from everyone at the club.

So Smith picked up his tactics from watching Cullen on Boots n' All? Love it.

i agree durham we as a set of fans do seem quick to put ourselves and club down and the end of the day we are not a bad side because weve lost a cup final by 9 points and 1 try more.

I noticed that myself as well actually - though I must admit that I was stunned that the defence fell for it every time. Obviously, if they'd been rushing up on Briers regardless then it would have left a gaping whole for Monas to run through, but even so, I thought they'd have marshalled themselves a little better against it after the first couple of occasions.

Put it down to a learning experience maybe .... also, I wonder if we'll see a similar method of last tackle kick being employed by Wire against HKR this weekend.

I liked that comment too. Great banter.