I think he can use 1 in a friendly. I’d imagine he’ll get a game ir two for that KPP spear tackle.

“The Panthers decided on Tuesday not to risk the pair ahead of the NRL season, with Edwards managing a minor niggle and Martin out with a shoulder injury.

Both are not expected to be in any doubt for the club's round-one clash with Brisbane, but officials have opted to play it safe with the duo.“

They’d have played if it was a big game to them.

So they were injured. Cheers

I think they under-estimated us and obviously they wouldn't have treated it like a GF. However I'm sure any SL side would be more serious about a GF than a WCC.

I'm also under no illusions that were we to play them 10 times over there, they would win considerably more than we would especially if it was mid-season. However as you allude to when they can spend so much on the cap and have the quality of players that they have you would expect it.

Its just annoying that to some Wigan fans its as though they played like it was a testimonial and. I think you only have to see Cleary's ice in the veins celebration after his conversion took it to Golden Point and the reaction of their players at full-time to see what it meant.

The semi final and final sum us up.

We are the entertainers of superleague, throw the ball about, amazing pace and skill and score the best tries. Marshall, Wardle, Field and French.

But we are also the toughest team in the league in a dog fight.

On the back of Harry’s kicking game, our defence can hardly be broken and we can grind out arm wrestle wins.


All hail Matty Peet and the coaching staff.

I think our sides in the main do treat it like a GF but the Aussies don’t. It was an amazing win and something Saints fans will rightfully remember forever, much as we do with 1994 in Brisbane. There’s no shame in admitting Penrith just thought they had to turn up and seemed to have very little interest in the game. A side spending multiple times what we can on their salary cap should be able to win, even with that type of attitude towards the game and the fact Saints beat them was incredible.

Unfortunately though if Saints fans want people to say they beat a fully motivated, fully focused and fully fit and firing Penrith team, that just won’t happen because it’s not true. I suspect they’ll be all of those when they play us because Saints pulled their pants down and it’ll be one hell of a challenge for us. If we pull it off, we’ll get the same things thrown at us though and I’ve no issue with that. To beat them, I think we’ll need them to be of a similar mindset as well.

Exactly. I've been laughing all weekend at certain Saints fans intimating they woulda/coulda won that game, completely missing the point that, unlike them, Wigan can play it in many different ways. Saints are more toothless than Catalans whereas, even in what is seen as an attritional final, we scored one, had one disallowed for a forward pass, another for crossing, one held up on the line and bombed another couple of clear cut chances. On another day that would have been 30+

Imagine if we'd played it free flowing...

It’s been absolutely hilarious! Some bloke who does Red Vee TV now and again tweeted they’d have butchered both sides



Presume he’s been sleeping during Saints games this past few months. They haven’t got a butchering in them against anybody, let alone the two sides on Saturday, defending like that. I can’t recall many scoring opportunities for Saints in the semi outside of the try for Hopoate. Wigan on Saturday created loads of opportunities and only some unbelievable last ditch tackling stopped that being a comfortable night.

Didn't we beat Brisbane with the majority of our pack missing as well? I know we had a few injuries going into the game for sure.

The defence from both teams was outstanding. If that had been 2 NRL teams people would have been waxing lyrical about how much better the NRL teams are defensively. Because it's 2 Superleague teams it's boring



We talk down our comp too readily. It was a final. If the teams had thrown it around it would have been used as an example of how naïve the Superleague is and how that wouldn't work against well drilled NRL teams. Play it tight and the teams "have no ideas in attack".

This obsession with talking our own game down no matter what is simply bizarre!

Aye, we were decimated if I remember correctly.

On a side note-Adam Keighran has been given a one game ban. I think he can use that in a friendly, so he should be ok for the first league game of 2024.

No Bell, Skerrett or Platt and Dermott really shouldn't have played but managed about 20mins before Hall came on

Mcginty (a pretty small 2nd rower never mind prop) Started prop with Cowie and with no other props available Mick Cassidy did some time there as well

When you consider Brisbane had Lazarus and Andrew Gee starting With another prop and 2 back rowers on the bench its astonishing

Betts, Farrell were great that day and Phil Clarke was Outstanding

Fully agree.

It was all very weird after the Saints v Catalans semi, with people saying it was a dreadful game. I thought it was a fantastic game and occasion. Tight, tense games, where defences are on top are better than teams going try for try IMO.

I just had a look at the past two seasons league tables, Wigan have outscored Saints by over 100 points in both seasons and our points difference has also been better than theirs over the same period.

But the Saints' fans would rather "trust their own eyes" and clearly that means Saints are still the best team and not a declining force at all. Don't forget they'd have butchered both teams on Saturday*!






*With apologies to the less deluded Saints fans.

When was the last time a team didn't score a try in a GF? I thought it might have been us Vs Bradford (one of my worst days as a Wigan fan), but when then we got a try.

Looking on Wiki, it doesn't seem like that's happened before. Quite a few 4 & 6 point scores.

1st team to keep an opponent Tryless in a GF (we were 30 seconds or whatever away from doing it in 2020)

Thanks

It would have been a blow out score if we’d played saints. They were on their last legs against Catalan.

A brilliant side but one whose prime cycle has come to an end.

Our started on Saturday.

Yeah, there is just no way a Saints fan could claim they’d butcher either side on Saturday. Maybe they’d have scraped past either side, who knows but that attack was dealt with pretty comfortably by Catalans the week before and we broke them up a good few times.

Keighran one match ban for the tip tackle, looks like he'll miss a trip to Cumbria in January

You can never say for sure (see Ben Flower final) but, on form alone, I can say for certain that they wouldn't have come close. They were a spent force even without losing the extra players for the final.

Their fans keep going on about "joint top" and "finishing on the same points" but that's a glossing over the reality of what really happened. While we were busy nilling Catalans on their own pitch, running riot putting big scores on teams and restricting the opposition to an average of less than a try a game, they were limping past opponents with abject displays and appalling attack. Even their much vaunted defence, although still good, wasn't on a par with ours.

Their semi final display was a perfect illustration of their season. They had nothing else to offer and the final, had they got there, would have been more of the same.

Gives the young lad eckersley a run out. Really hoping him and Douglas kick on this next season and come into the first team.

Believe Percival would’ve missed the final with injury, so him and Matautia would’ve sat on the sidelines with Batchelor. Guys like Walmsley and Sironen looked half fit as well. They’d have had to bring Hurrell back in, who would’ve faced Wardle in that form, with that footwork.

I’d have been far more nervous for a Saints final but I said in the week leading up that Catalans was the harder fixture because of those circumstances.

More nervous in the sense that the consequences of something going wrong (a la Ben Flower as said earlier) would have been worse but I'd have gone into the final more confident of a win. Catalans, as it turned out, were similarly blunt in attack but we absolutely knew Saints were.