my observations

1. the ref had a few shockers today.... which in theory cost wigan the game (no bias...)
2. wigan wern`t at the races the first half hour
3. wigan did not play there normal game
4. everything leeds did came off they rode their luck and at the end brian mcdermott knew this
5. ryan baily a poor player and a poor attitude
6. respect to kevin sinfield , rob burrows and ryan hall.... true proffesionals...
7. maybe wigan expected to win if they turned up....and that was their undoing


thoughts please.....

It was a 'perfect storm' for Leeds.

Wigan were poor, Leeds clicked, referee was pi$$ poor.

End result.......well, we all know that one!!!!!!

Baileys attitude nearly as poor as that of "have a coke and a smile" Hock.Never mind always next year.

Appalling ref, Leeds had the rub of the green, as said earlier, a perfect storm, but Leeds still played the right tactics and therefore won.

Exactly. Leeds werent even that good imo and only won by 9 points after being gifted 3 tries by the ref and gifted tries by mistakes aplenty from Wigan who were awful.

How the hell we were in the game after 60 minutes i will never know. If we had played Wire or Saints would have been a beating.

You have my commiserations. Leeds were really up for it and played well but three absolute shockers from Thaler (who until now I thought was having a semi reasonable season). If Alibert gets a one match ban for counting to seven, I hate to think what Thaler deserves. How hard can it be to go to a video referee on what is not convincingly a try in a Cup semi-final!

As an aside, I half thought maybe O'Loughlin should have passed to Charnley so he could get closer to the posts for the conversion whilst chasing the game in the 2nd half.

I still expect you to go on and win the Grand Final, maybe this is the impetus needed.

Too many errors in the first 30 minutes in our own 20.

Leeds were the most clinical I've seen a team in a very long time - made us pay every time we made an error.

Appalling goal line defence.

We completely went away from what we do when we got ourselves back in the game, tried to play catch-up rugby far too early. If we'd kept our structure we'd have ground our way back into the game, but every time we got a sniff we made another stupid error in the second half by throwing it about too much.

Best team won and the score flattered Wigan.

As Wane said:

"We didn't turn up today. We've defended all year better than that. But take nothing way from Leeds. They wanted it more which to me is gutting. They've some real warriors in their team."

Big matches demand big starts as our recent GF and CC wins prove. Today's start set the tone for the rest of the match unfortunately.

It's a slippery slope that starts with one deficiency in a teams performance, which eventually as the match wares on effects every facet of play. Errors, lack of possession and position, enthusiasm, composure, missed tackles. All are follow on from one and other when you don't play well.

to win a final you get the glory ! to get to the final you get the money

Wane has to take some of the blame for the fact he just has not dealt with the loss of Tommy properly at all.

Lockers is not a #6 and this has been said so many times and it also removes the best #13 in the league from his rightful position.

The debate about moving Sam to #6 has been done to death but it need not have come to that. All he had to do was recall Mellor form Widnes and that would have meant [uzero[/u positional changes.

I have no idea what the reasoning is behind not recalling a number 7 when our number 7 is out injured but Wane needs to learn from this in the way he hopefully learned from making too many changes v Windes earlier in the season. He should have realised by now Lockers isn't a six and it was naive of him to think we could go into a cup semi final with the team this out of shape and a make shift stand off. Beating Wakey with a team made up like this is no indication of how they will fare in a cup semi-final.

We were that bad it is quite amazing that we only lost by 11 points. Despite us being as bad as we were just a few less individual mistakes and a pair of glasses for Thaler and we would have won the game. Leeds really should have been out of sight by half time.

Shocking defence and shocking refereeing.

You do not win a big game conceding 39 points.

Finch had a nightmare. Tuson should never start ahead of Faz and Hughes.
MM was clearly not fit.

Or maybe Wane and the coaching staff feel that Mellor isnt good enough. The fact that they havent recalled him, as well as signing Smith early, suggests that they do not. Maguire often used O'Loughlin at 6 so it is hardly nothing new and I dont recall anyone calling him naive when he did.

O'Loughlin was one of our few good performers today and looked very good at stand off. Admittedly his presence in the middle may not have helped when chasing the game as the team obviously looks much better with three pivots instead of two; however his performance today was actually quite good, just like against Wakefield and he's shown that when purely looking at the halves (i.e not taking his loss at 13 into account) he's by far the best player to use as a stand in.
However, when you do take into account what we lose at 13 it's not been ideal.

With O'Loughlin at 6 we also need our strongest pack out for most of the game which means Farrell at loose forward from the start.

Now that Matty Smith is here though it's all largely irrelevant.

I actually thought he was very poor defensively by his standards and was at fault for 2 tries with players going straight through him.

We were chasing the game from the start.
Too many mistakes and Leeds scored from most. If they didn't field position was theirs and we could hardly get into their half.
If we could have completed more sets we'd have had a chance. As for respeated sets I can't remember any, may have had the odd one but if you want to win games repeat sets are the way.
We just didn't have field position to get them.
From the outset Leeds had the momentum and enthusiasm and that won the day.
Thaler may have been dreadful but we didn't lose due to him.

Leeds were clinical in punishing our errors, at 16-0 down it was then all uphill. The two quick scores brought us back into the game, only to concede again. I thought we were lucky to be only 10 points behind at HT.
The next score was obviously crucial....it looked dubious from where I was sat, I haven't seen a replay, and I couldn't get a good view of the screen, so can't comment any further.
The Leeds pack dominated ours in the first half, Burrow was always a danger, and Sinfield kicked us out of the game. Having to play catch-up always meant risks had to be taken.
Congratulations to Leeds, they were the better side on the day, and, in the end, deserved to win.

All efforts now to secure first place, get everyone fit, and have a go to get to Old Trafford.

How a Wigan side can be so poor and score so many beat me

Gives me hope for the rest of SL.

Too many errors, and the defence was pathetic at times.

I genuinely cannot remember the last time a team broke through a Wigan defence that frequently and easily.

That said, we all know that performance isn't reflective of Wigan so far this year, so if we go back to what we've been doing, we'll be there or thereabouts in October.

Worst we've played since the Huddersfield game on the opening weekend. No real go forward, terrible defence, no composure. Struggling to come up with a top 3.

Neutral view:

1. Tomkins lost it for you in the first quarter.
2. Your forwards were pathetic.
3. As a team you didn't want to work for it.
4. Best team by a mile won.
5. Both defences were very poor (which maybe explains why you got so close)?
6. You were outcoached.
7. Leeds had more and better creative and strike players and a better full back on the day.
8. Ref. made some errors but that's a distraction.

The half back combination didn't lose us the game today. As bad as he was with at least 2 decisions Thaler didn't lose us the game (will have to watch it back but the Hall ball steal penalty and the knock on for the Hardaker try were definite shockers on the refs part). A Leeds team that came out at a higher intensity than ourselves were clinical enough to take advantage of some uncharacteristic errors in the first 15/20 minutes and that meant they got a start on us and we weren't able to overturn it.

FWIW Thaler should be get a week off for not going to the screen for THAT "try" IMO that is worse than Alibert giving 7 tackles.

Too many errors, and the defence was pathetic at times.

I genuinely cannot remember the last time a team broke through a Wigan defence that frequently and easily.

That said, we all know that performance isn't reflective of Wigan so far this year, so if we go back to what we've been doing, we'll be there or thereabouts in October.

What is really worrying is that,that defeat has been coming for a while , we have not been playing well for 4 or 5 weeks now but still getting the wins(Bradford being the exception), i really believe that without Tommy we are just not the team we were before his injury, i know one man does not make a team but the work he puts in defence is unbelievable, we need him and Pat back ASAP if we are to have any chance of winning the GF .Tonight we looked average at best, the defence was woeful.Leeds deserved to win but i have to say that Thaler is the worst referee i have seen this season ,3 tries were given that should not have been, why he didn't go to the VT for Mcguires knock on can only be described as amateur, the man does not deserve to referree in SL again