Firstly congratulations to Leeds and St Helens for getting to the GF, I am looking forward to a great match.

What if all coaches build through the course of the season to peak at the business end? And who's to say they don't. I think Wigan's approach and belief is that they have the players to win every game so that is what they set out to do. During the course of a season they must leave room for testing different approaches where they feel this is necessary and this is where I see a key difference. One approach - and I think this is Wigan's - is that you aim to win the game and try new ideas - another approach is that your first priority in a particular game or run of games is to try new ideas and winning the game is of secondary importance. I think either approach is valid and would back either.

While what happens at the end of the season does depend on your approach it is influenced by all sorts of other things that happen in your team and the others. This year the slow build approach has come out on top, last year the more ruthless approach won through.

All credit to Royce Simmons and Brian McDermott for getting their teams to the GF, I'm pleased for them and feel very relaxed about it. I enjoyed winning the GF and CC and the memories are still very fresh, as a Wigan fan I have been spoiled and I love it. Looking forward to next year - who knows how it will turn out!

Man up, hardly an insult, merely that your posts project you as being sour.

You also made a thoroughly inaccurate point about the League being about consistency across the season. It isn't. Not at all. It is about putting yourself in a position to win the Grand Final. It's that simple. Nor is the system unfair to Saints. Second playing 3rd is realistic as is 5th going to play 4th away then 1st away from home (and playing an extra game prior to that). What part of that is in the favour of the lower placed teams?

There are some hugely spurious points being made in this thread that are completely way off beam.

Can this thread get back on topic please - the clue is in the title. If people want to debate the pros and cons of the play-offs or the different systems there is already a separate thread that has degenerated into bickering. This one isn't going the same way.

WLA the slight thread drift on this is pretty understandable given the fact that the points are closely linked.

Imo it's quite obvious that we haven't peaked at the correct time. Not seen a single valid argument against this fact.

If, as Jonh said, Wigan targetted the CC and not SL, then perhaps IL could tell us in advance next season which one he is targetting, in order that I may save time and money and only follow the one that he actually wishes to compete for.

The answer from DaveO seems to suggest that a sample size of 1 is sufficient to draw the conclusion that playing at 100% is the way to ensure success. I disagree for reasons I have made.

The drift to questioning the format of the playoffs is an interesting one. Last year it wasn't an issue as the best team over the course of the season (and by some way I might add) won SL.

This season that will simply not be the case.

However, strictly keeping to the thread, that does not question whether Wigan peaked too soon, merely whether they were disadvantaged sufficiently by not doing (if indeed you believe they didn't).

The issue is much deeper than MM banging on about Wigan "not being tired". Personally I think we looked shattered, but even if we were to agree with MM, this is simply part of it. Did we "step up" for the playoffs in the way that Leeds and Stains did? No.

Did we offer anything "extra" when we really needed it? No we did not.

Do you honestly think that our form in the playoffs was our best of the season? If so, and this is the only way that you can argue against the question in the thread title, then please tell us exactly how and why it was.

Or maybe give credit to Hetherington/McDermott for studying the play-off system and deciding that 5th place actually gave a better chance of reaching OT than 3rd/4th?

Hull & Hudds were by no means 'easy' wins - quite disrespectful to both clubs. Yes, Hudds have finished the season much worse than they started it, but they were still 4th on merit. Similarly Catalan finshed a poorer team than they started but I didn't hear too many complaints from the Wigan camp when you'd put 40 past them.

If Leeds win the GF from 5th, they will have beaten 4th, 1st and 3rd in successive weeks - all away from home.

That is good enough for me

I'd love to work out how/why the club that wins the CC struggle so badly in the play-offs. I can see no logical reason to this. Fatigue will of course play a part, but the losers of the CC will have played the same number of games (WCC aside) as any other team. Arguably (and logically) it would have been more understandable if Leeds' season had fallen apart after Wembley - yet it seemed to spur us on.

I'm sure emotion plays more of a part than we realise. Sinfield admitted (after the WCC loss to Manly in Feb '09) that it took the team months to get over that game, because that was their primary target. It certainly showed on the pitch, yet after those few months 'getting over it' Leeds went on to win the GF. Again, albeit inadvertantly, by peaking at the right time.

With the CC final and Grand Final being so close together it does seem unrealistic to target winning both