We rely on Sam so much it's frightening.

At the moments we've got a set of flat track bullies who do it when the pressure is off. Too many times we've lost the bigger games under Wane and that's because we're replacing quality with substandard players for a club of our stature.

Sam wasn't the person we missed most tonight, A lack of leadership from the likes of O'Loughlin and having H in the pack is what we missed.

Yep.

Sam in the team and we win.

Agreed; Lockers especially.

With Sam, Lockers, HH & Mic Mac doing 2 stints we'd have won convincingly, and throwing in Roby for them too.
As they weren't there, we lost.
Now who would have predicted that then?

Fancy telling me the lottery numbers while you're at it too, please?

XBrettKennyX needs to log off and come back on tomorrow. What a ridiculous thread

Can Wigan pay Sam as much as they want and it not count towards the cap? Genuine question I'm sure I've heard this. Any true fan of any team would mourn the loss of a player like him. Would be a dark day for RL.

I don't think the loss was due to Sam not playing. Hampshire is no Tomkins we know, but he had a blinder at FB. We missed Lockers leadership and strength in the middle. We also looked as if we didn't want it as much as them and that's down to the SL structure! No excuses tonight, they beat a weakened team that if they'd executed better could have won it.

Frankly embarrassing thread. Who do you expect him to buy? Inglis or Slater? Or both? Go and have a cold shower man!

[u2012[/u

Wigan swept away (mostly) all opponents in the league campaign, concentrated on finishing top of the pile and then suffered in both the Challenge Cup Semi Final and the Play-off Semi Final.

A number of posters on here blamed the coaching staff for not rotating the squad better so that they would be ready to perform 'come the business end of the season'.

Fast forward twelve months......

[u2013[/u

Wigan swept away (mostly) all opponents in the league campaign up until the end of June thus securing a high playoff position at least. Rotated the majority of the squad throughout the season, reached the Challenge Cup Semi Final and have a "very good chance of winning it" whilst leaving out a couple of our star players in preparation for the must-win 'knock out' matches and the 'business end of the season'.

Now we're seeing threads how we've dropped off in the league and "had Sam been in the team we'd have won" (and remained top).

Let's just remember that during the off season THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE ACCUSING THE CLUB OF FAILING TO DO IN 2012.

You guys wanted this!!!!!!!

Have you got the players who can step it up for the big games though? On recent evidence, the answer would be no.

We've all been hoodwinked by Leeds into thinking that the regular season matters not a jot come the business end. But, Leeds robbery of the title will prove to be a blip IMO. Parity will be restored, and the best team will win it this season, and it wont be you.

Yep. Bar for one or two (who either don't go to games or if they do sit there in complete indifference) the league games do matter!

As to selections for this game shouldn't it have all boiled down to who we are facing in the semi final of the CC? Was there any need to rest anyone v Saints? In fact if fit wouldn't you think the likes of Lockers could actually have done with the game time? (I said this on Mike's board before the game before anyone levels the accusation of hindsight!).

I don't know but tonight showed just how much we rely on Sam.

Without him we are mediocre.

You are the statistics man. Remind me of our record without him again....................

How bad is gelling? So many mistakes in his game and basically waved makinson through for the winning try.

Surely there is a young centre at your club better than him? At times he looks like he's never played before.

Nah, I can't see Huddersfield winning it.

That try wasnt gellings fault. It was down to the fact that richards had decided to wonder off to the other wing and leave him on his own.


We lost because our 2 biggest attacking threats didnt play (lockers and sam). Matty smith is a poor 7. He has poor vision and poor hands. The only thing going in his favour is his kicking game. I still like Green, i think he is classy 6 but he cant do it alone, we desperately missed the link up play between lockers Green and sam. Poor performance overall, clueless and ill disciplined.

Laughable thread, come on BK you're usually pretty knowledgable! It was a nothing game compared to next week so we rested our senior players and still only got beat by 6, which I predicted FWIW (or I may have said 10 actually). Imagine if we had played the full 17, knocked 7 bells out of each other but won, then at the weekend we have a load of injuries/bans, the rest of the team looks fatigued and wegive up a shock loss to London. I'd want Wane's head on a spike!

Also, imagine Wire played Saints and rested Briers, Westwood and Harrison, then M.Monaghan only did 1 stint. I reckon they would struggle.

We need to replace Sam clearly but that was not the reason we lost last night. Hampshire deputised brilliantly. Locky and H were far bigger misses our pack lacked brains and leadership at crucial times.

The run of penalties was appalling from our lads but I still felt we would win up until the sin bin. The game was made for a late break from a player with pace, but once we lost the link we lost the ability to free our fastest wide runner in Hampshire who had to come in at second receiver.

The loss of McIllorum also hurt us assume he was injured as he never came back after about the 20 minute mark.

No Tomkins though was not the reason for that display.

True, you did well to push a full strength saints team

Don't forget the sin binning at a crucial time too...

But then, why look for the positives, when it's so much easier to sit and moan. We won't win anything this season, may as well not bother to turn up.... Bring back DW and Noble i say!!!

As others have said, it wasn't just the loss of Sam that cost us, the spine of the team wasn't there. At the end of the day, we gave Saints a massive fright last night. We can talk about having the mental strength to close out big games etc. but ultimately, this wasn't a big game in the grand scheme of things. Of course beating the enemy is always nice, an perhaps we've had it a bit easy the past few years, but I'd have taken a defeat tonight if it meant we win on Saturday.

Finals and trophies are where it's at now. Yes, the league table has become a bit of a side show now and that's down to the RFL, but if we put a trophy in the cabinet (or two hopefully

) the season will be considered a success and this game will be forgotten about.

Could you imagine though, if the RFL said that whoever finishes top is champions? We would now have a 3-way fight to decide the winners and I really couldn't call it. One thing is for sure if that was case: Sam, Lockers and HH would certainly have played.

On a positive note, how good was Pat's drop goal?

We beat a weakened team with a far more weakened team!

Ok you have your opinion but if this game was the playoffs and you had a full strength team against our full strength team, you wouldnt stand a chance.