Anybody see Granada reports last night? 15 minute special showing you around Saints new ground. Absoulutely awesome, a proper RL ground with an RL feel to it, top class facilities.

Jealous? JUST A BIT!!!!!!!

They made it happen when lots of people said they wouldn't.

Got to give them credit.

Yes, and no. It's great but too small for Wigan.

If you ask me I'd rather all Wigan fans get to watch the team even if it isn't "our" ground, than be in "our" ground and have to turn people away. We are a much bigger club than our friends from Merseyside.

It looks awesome, saying it's to small for wigan is a bit short sighted imo, I dont like the whole "we're a bigger club" thing. we need to look at the bigger picture. if we had an 18'000 seating and standing stadium it would be great. Yes there would the wire and saints games where more space would be needed but for the majority of the season it would be fine, and with it being a modern stadium i guess it can be increased if saints find that now they've moved into a new facility it brings in more fans and increases the need for more space.

the DW has 25'000 ish seats? and the only time you get near having a decent atmosphere is when its near capacity. Certainly not saying I'd give up the DW to play at a ground like saint's, But if it eventually had to happen, I'd have no problem with it.

A great Rugby League Stadium, which saints should be proud of. and imo so much better than the HJ

I'm with Deano on this... Great stadium, but not for us. I'm all for looking forward and having our marketing team aiming to fill the place and they do a terrific job.

It's a good looking Rugby League stadium a lot nicer aesthetically than the brick/aluminium clad sheds of the Halliwell Jones. I'm not jealous of Saints because we are a bigger club and are in biggest stadium to accommodate that fact.

Great stadium, made even better by being named after a place in Wigan. AHEM!

THIS

I suppose we now have to wait and see if there's a change of dynamic at the DW.

It's a bit early to say for certain, but Latics look likely candidates for relegation this year, and if that happens we may find that suddenly we're no longer in danger of being asked to move fixtures, etc.

Really that's been my only beef with the DW in recent times. I certainly don't have a problem with the look of it, or the atmosphere, and the location's pretty convenient.

The problem of course is that if Latics start dropping like a stone, then we'll be forced to carry more of the stadium costs. The sooner we start filling it regularly, the better.

Great looking stadium , been past it a few times this week as I was working near by. I saw the last but of the tv program . Nice little touch by using the posts from Knowsley Road .

Wigan have nothing to be jealous about. The DW is a fantastic stadium. They rent it, so what. Both langtree Park and the DW are miles better than the meccano stadium warrington have that looks like it would blow away in a gale force wind

You are right about our grounds. But i would draw the line at being critical about the HJ. I would rather be critical about many of the sub-standard grounds in SL.

Indeed. There are still too many grounds which don't meet any kind of modern standard, in reality.

It's good to see those west of the Pennines taking a bit of a lead.

The new place looks very good indeed.
I'll reserve judgement until I've been.
I do hope the terracing is not too shallow where you are always faced by the back of the head of the individual in front of you.
KR had shallow terracing as has Leeds. The HJ West stand is very good and I hope Langtree Park will be similar.

I think its more a case of Wire being critical of ours when theres is a soulless lego brick stadium. Its still great compared to most of Yorkshire facility wise just that its a bit plain and bland.

short sighted how? Next season I would expect the Saints, Leeds and Wire matches and whichever game is selected as the Big One to be over 18k. That's actually quite a significant percentage of our regular season league matches.

IL has set out his long term goal of increasing our average crowds significantly over the 16k we already get.

We couldn't do that with Saints' stadium, and it isn't short sighted to point that out. And the bigger club thing is just a fact.

credit where credit is due the stadium looks brilliant and there is no comparison to nosey road, which to put it lightly was a tired hole.

Both teams deserve the better surroundings that they are both in and it is good to see clubs giving fans better facilities.

I think you have a pretty valid point with regards to the size of the stadium not suiting Wigan. However, i think it it had all the corners (I dont believe langtree does) this would give say another 3k, so a total of 21k which i think would be great for Wigan.

This, I imagine, would mean higher income for wigan as no rent and all hospitality earnings etc, and would only lose out on around 4k literally a couple of times a year.

I think most wigan fans would love that. out of curiosity, is there anywhere to build such a venue in wigan available?

We have the biggest and best stadium, as befits the biggest and best. We can't fill it so often, but then, you can't you fill yours.

We have done this to death on this board, much as we would like our own place, it ain't going to happen, and we all know this.

The only two places that I know were mooted were by Junction 25 of the M6 and on Billinge Road Pemberton.

Both IMO would be unsuitable as they are too far from the town centre.

The Langtree has two corners filled in (they are the family areas). One of the other corners has the big screen and scoreboard and the fourth is an empty space with big gates, being left to facilitate events stuff to get through. I would imagine that will include all the runners in the St Helens 10K on 11 March 2012 (in support of Steve Prescott Foundation plus others) who will be starting and ending the race at the stadium.

You dont "have", you pay Mr DW to play there, Mr DW has it.

Biggest, probably, best? Nope, league table and more importantly (sadly) grandfinal says otherwise.

Can we fill ours, not all the time no but i never said we could so dont really see the point in that little dig. My point was i think an alternative wigan ground would be better and just asked if there was a location that would fit the bill.

I don't know why leeds is in that group. In the last few years there's only been one leeds game with a gate over the 18,000 mark which was actually the first big one in 2009. Undoubtedly Saints and Wire games would get 20+.

Lets be honest about this... Had the DW stadium been built just for the rugby would it have been a 25,000 seater stadium?.... I personally don't think it would have been. Why spend so much on a stadium thats going to get filled twice a year.

I think its great that we do have such a big stadium that can accommodate more fans. And IL has rightly so made use of it with the marketing and things like the big one. Having the average attendance that we do have now is great, but i don't ever see it going up dramatically from the 16k that it is now. certainly not above the 20k mark anyway. as awesome as it would be, i just cant see it.

I thought the whole point of this thread was too congratulate saints on getting a great new ground anyway rather than arguing over who is the biggest club.

Wasn't Aspull talked about a good few years back? I did hear they sized the area when talking about building the DW.

Is a great ground, the one thing i dont like about the HJ lack of corners, i know we're half way to sorting that but i think it will make it look so much better when all four are done.

Even the name of the saints ground is good, doesn't sound like corporate sponsorship.