On Thursday we were all agog at the thrashing Salford gave to Saints. Today, Widnes went even one better when they beat the reigning champions 56 - 12. Hull FC, perennial "also rans", have had two massive and impressive wins, one of them at the usually graveyard venue in France. Are we witnessing a change to the usual order and come the end of the regular season will we be seeing some new names in the top four? Incidentally, the Widnes team contained no less than 5 ex Wigan Academy players.

I listened to the game, after 30 mins Leeds had Briscoe, Galloway and Golding taken off with game finishing injuries.

That would cripple any team but they were being slaughtered anyway to be fair. Hardaker ended up on the wing etc. God knows what the score is going to be against The Cowboys. Pick your score from +30. Saints will go the same way and we haven't started like a house on fire but on the early showing it looks like Saturday night's game will be the most competitive.

EDIT :- I say i was listening to it but mostly i was trying to understand what Ray French was trying to say. He didn't have a clue what was going on and had to be constantly prompted by his co-commentator :/

We need to just keep picking up the wins and wait for us to get a full compliment of players back. We've been pretty poor in many aspects so far but wins are wins and we have two of them. In a format were you need to get points on the board to finish in the top 8 and more importantly the top 4 scrapping ugly wins are massive.

We'll be a totally different team in June/July. It'll be interesting to see how teams like Hull, Widnes and Salford are going then. I see Leeds and Huddersfield as two big rivals for the top four and to have a two win head start on them from this point is massive.

I agree Nicky, It's a role reversal this year. If we get 4 points in the next 2 games i think we are already guaranteed top 2. How confident is that!

deluded

I listened to the last five minutes of the Widnes/Leeds match with Ray and Allan plus their after match review.
Ray pointed out that the week before the WCC Saints and Leeds had conceded 100 points between them.
Not a very good outlook for the competition.

If we get 4 points out of the next 2 games feel free to quote me

BTW is that a cucumber or a pickle on your avatar?

One mans not very good for the comp is another mans excellent I suppose. It's good to see that if teams drift they'll get taken to the cleaners against sides I expect most people think will be just outside the top 8 come the end of the weekly rounds.

The club series could get a little out of hand and isn't coming at the best time for the English sides but maybe they will thrive under the adversity they're facing. We've got a Saints side looking out of form and a couple of bodies shy against a star studded Roosters team, A Wigan side looking devoid of attacking ideas and missing their key man against probably the best side in the NRL last year and a Leeds side now without two of their best ever players, missing their captain plus 4 or 5 other players and are not in great form against the Australian champions.

Tough ask.

And Wane seems to think Gelling will get better he is not good enough to play for Wigan girls team

Does this Wigan girls team have a couple of ball handling props (or middles) we could borrow for the rest of the season ?.

I don't get all the hate for the lad. Simply put, we wouldn't have won the game without him on Friday. Set up Manfredi try, and his run basically set up the match winner. Plus he made a lot of metres too.
And the 'knock on' call against him leading to one of their tries was the completely wrong call, there was nothing wrong with that offload.

Mr Frisk doesnt play with a full deck so i wouldnt pay too much attention

He wasn't too bad when he sent Manfredi in to put us in front for the first time in the game, or when he made the break to set up the winning try, or when he kept carting it up for 10 metres a carry! The forced passes are frustrating but even so he was one of our best on Friday.

Gelling divides opinion and always will do. As I've said in another thread- If he wasn't in the side on Friday we don't win that game IMO. His one big error was the offload and even that was incorrectly called as a knock on by the ref.

Ah well we'll call him Mr Marmite then, but he is in his 5th season and what you would expect from a senior centre making tries for his winger,

Agreed. We've had far worse than Gelling playing for the team who've attracted far less criticism.

He has an element of unpredictability we need in our very structured team. I think people still see Renouf as our 'average' centre.

People moan at our predictable play and more than likely the same people moan at Gelling taking risks.

From memory (and i had had a few pints...)

Two of our tries came from Gelling assists did they not?

The guy is a match winner on his day and can hurt us on a bad day.

Bit like Sam Tomkins can..................

Agreed. Had he not passed that ball out (which cost us a try) he was my MOM.

He frustrates at times but normally more than makes up for it.

With three minutes to go his break (3rd or 4th tackle) won us the game.

Still worth his place despite what Mr Frisk says.

I'm in the 'a lot more good than bad' camp re Gelling. And the point about fans complaining about our predictability is a fair one.

Remember that game (Wire?) when he side-footed the ball into Manfredi's hands for a score? A magical moment.

I know this is off topic but I really agree with you on this. I have great respect for the man but he's not Highlander, he's getting old now and really struggles to commentate in my opinion. Alan Rooney constantly has to correct him.

Two weeks in last year Wakefield were joint top two from two and look what happened to them.

In fact Cas and Huddersfield both lost their opening three games last year.

Judge things at Easter.

And Matty B I thought you knew a centre when you saw one! Mr Frisk has his opinion just the same as you,

As a ball handling 2nd rower playing centre position he's doing a grand job of it. Much better than Joel does. Granted he ain't Gene Miles and never will be.

Of course Mr Frisk has his own opinion however when one is so ridiculous (not fit to play in Wigan girls team) then expect some sort of response to it.

Ludicrous.

How can you be sure we'll be totally different? Bringing J Tomkins, Mossop and Crosby in won't be a huge difference to what we have now. Sure, a fully fit S Tomkins will improve things, but there is no guarantee when he'll be back or if he'll ever be fully fit again. Even so, there's no guarantee we won't pick up more injuries. If we lose MM or S'Ol, we'll suffer.

True, but you have to go back 7 years for the last time we won our first two games.