Not when it matters

But you cannot play a passing game in weather like that with the new ball.

You also have to earn the right to pass and when you are on the back foot in the forwards it is hard to get on the front foot.
Lose in the forwards , lose territory , make mistakes and you will lose a game..

Should have had 4 forwards on the bench with fooey and lunt interrchanging.

It is a long time since Eorl went off so early on commentary it said he was being spelled. If he was not injured than it shows how tough it was out in the middle.

Club call could be a bit different this year.

I said if fit I would have preferred Ta'ai to Wood with Fuey who I thought played well doing the spell of Lunt at dummy half.

Wigan did to us what we did to them last time out and congrats to them they deserved to win tonight.

We have had a few of these blips this season but our completion rate was poor tonight and for me only Grix, Lawrence, Chan and Faiumu played near their best but the games gone we need our heads on next week.

I would imagine Crabtree was taken off early because he was having a bad game. He was run over the top of by a Wigan forward then missed Tomkins and followed this by fumbling the ball in his own in goal area

You say you cannot play a passing game in those conditions Well Wigan did! Many times they passed from one side of the pitch to the other- they came away with nothing due to our decent defence- if we had done that who knows! Broughs decision making was poor tonight as was his kicking game.

You do realise Eorl has only missed 7 tackles ALL SEASON!

But they had time to do it which is why i made the point you have to dominate in the middle to earn the right to move the ball. We were hammered in the middle so never had the line speed to put them under as much defensive pressure which gave them more time to organise and get their passing going.

If we were winning the ruck we would have pressurised them more in defence which would have stopped them moving the ball as much.

Anyway we lost in the forwards and that is the problem.

Wigan got their tactics spot on tonight, it was awful to watch but it worked for them. the constant slowing our play the ball down, timewasting( 7 times i counted them kicking or throwing the ball away) etc were obviously intended to stop us playing and credit to them, it did. can't fault them for trying it its up to the officials to police this and i feel they didn't tonight, Wigan were in control of ruck speed, messing about etc because the officials gave them free reign to do this and we just couldn't get going on the back of it and it negated our plan - like i said it seemed to be a tactic tonight and it worked, no complaints we were 2nd best.

Also, we had Lunt, Wood and Faiumu tonight - why all 3 ? surely Lunt is good enough to play 60 + mins with one of the others spelling them, we are a totally different team with Lunt on the field so why isn't he on more ?

Brough is a great player, and has been all season, but when he has a bad game there's no one else able to put their hand up.

Enjoyed the game, after the first 20 minutes I thought Huddersfield would run away with it but Wigan are resolute!

That does not make Stella's observations about the errors any less true though. Eorl would probably say the same.

No complaints? Your comments are full of them!!

They aren't complaints, they are observations, i've said it was good tactics by Wigan to play this way as it stopped us playing and helped you control the game your way. We weren't good enough tonight, you were.

I do and he missed two in five minutes tonight. He really looked to be struggling. Brough also made a hatful of errors but was probably trying too hard.

Credit to Wigan they played well and were effectively a man short as Powell was woeful

I just don't understand why we would take off one of our three props. Even if hes not playing as well as he can do. Faiumu is not and should never be used as a prop forward. Didn't like it when brown did it and i don't like it now.

I cannot agree with you. We were beaten by a more dominant team.
All the dropped ball and poor passes and lack of metres gained had nothing to do with wigans tactics or the ref.

The best team won. We have to eat the humble pie tonight.

I agree.

We have been short a prop all season after Fielden was injured.

For whatever reason none of the other props are ready yet and we got found out in the pack again.
That is why i said i would have liked to have got Amor.

Chin up, we won it from your current position in 2010

I think you will win next week, but you need to up your game for the SF as the other teams will.

With Fielden retired we don't really have many options in the front row. Faiumu is a far better option than Mullally.

When Eorl was run through by their forward I thought they would score but what a tackle by Grix. Thought I would mention as usually he is the first to be made a scapegoat.

Of course they were the best team i haven't even tried to deny that, my point was they came with a tactic designed to negate the way we play, it did, which meant we had to play differently which we couldn't hence we lost the game cos of this.

Thought Grix was good tonight, one of only a handful that can truly hold their heads up.

Best team won, we need to turn the disappointment into a positive, we have another cherry to bite!, we'll be back.

INwww.youtube.com/watch?v=yFOvldn_IRwOUT

The Playoff system looks good.

Couldn't disagree with the OP any more.

On paper, we had a very strong team out and nobody could argue with it before kickoff.

Wigan were quicker and stronger and beat us by playing like Warrington!!

Seriously though, they played the conditions a lot better, got away with more and were on the right end of a couple of bad calls.

Wigan deserved it

first 10-15 minutes apart we seemed to lack intensity,whether that was to do with resting the players last week im not sure, but we just didn't have a spark in attack. conditions were a factor for both sides so cant use that as an excuse.
we played too narrow IMO and never got the ball wide early to get ferres and chan rampaging, to be fair wigans defence was very good though but we seemed to persist in just going down the middle, I cant remember getting our wide runners involved much and I don't think murph or jerry received many passes if any.
very disappointed tonight as we didn't show up, wigan were better, as daz says they got their tactics spot on and pushed bentham to the limit and were very lucky to get away with a lot of stuff.
that said though we just didn't play to our potential and were beaten by a better side on the night.