didnt we all say that after the opening game of the season, 5 games ago, though?

at the end of the day the team wane put out was a good enough team on the day, they were obviously outplayed on the day even if it was just by a point.

what i dont get is why wane says he needed to rest players 6 games in?! REALLY annoyed me that. they get paid a shedload more than i do and all they have to do is keep themselves fit. i work 40 hour weeks and manage to do it. if they are unfit drop them to the u20s, dont rest them like primadonnas.

and for me, this season is going to be a steep learning curve for wane. i'll be surprised and very happy if we make it to any semi-finals at all.

Fair comment, and a good read.

The couple of players coming back from injury he mentions are probably Carmont and Richards.
The defeat could cost us as that's two points dropped against a team who will play Wire three time in the League. That six points in the bag for Wire. Best we could have hoped for was four, now it's two. Wire will no doubt do their points diff some good in the process of their three wins. Tony Smith, nor any other coach, will rest that number of players after seeing Wigan's result.
As almost everyone else has said, rest players by all means in one's and two's but not five at one time!

Sorry, meant Carmont and Prescott, not Richards!

But then it comes back to an issue where finishing 1st or finishing 4th is much the same. Yes it would be nice to be top at the end of the year but in reality it means little. I won't go down the route some do and start saying look at Leeds winning it from 5th because that is harder and I think that will be more a one off then the norm but the facts are finishing first isnt the be all and end all.

It was 2 points dropped Sunday and it could cost us a place or 2 in the table but I'm fully confident we'll finish in the top 4 and that will be job done. If one of the rested lads from Sunday comes up with a piece of magic in the play offs or ideally the Grand Final Shaun Wane may just point back to days like Sunday.

As much as I hate the League being devalued in this way I agree and it just doesnt seem right. I would also say it is perfectly possible for a team to win it from 5th or below, the only reason it didnt happen until Leeds last year was because a team that was good enough to do it hadnt finished that low before. The best teams have generally finished in the top 2 anyway. The teams that finish 5th and below are generally the Hull KR's, Hull and whatever other average teams that manage to scrape into the top 8. If by some miracle Wigan, Warrington, Leeds and Saints finished 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th this year then I would still put my mortgage on one of these teams winning it.