Very fair assessment, and one I'm sure most will agree on.

Not sure about that!

Just hoping both teams play well to give a good and fairly won result. Nothing worse than one team having a poor performance at this stage and gifting it to the other....suppose that's the nature of pressure in the run in.

We've now had the ball-strip from George Carmont, the elbow to O'Loughlin's head and the flop by Henderson on Pat Richards - all unpunished by Ganson. So far the evidence is that the ref was actually favouring the French.

Tell you what mate, give me your list of poor reffing decisions that went against les Cats and I guarentee I'll match it decision for decision for ones that went against Wigan. And if you reckon Wigan weren't impressive (and by implication can do much better) in beating Catalans 44-zip you must be a very worried Saints fan indeed.

Maybe she should stick to ironing along with Saints fan.

Nah...I would somehow be Ganson's fault if she(?) burned a shirt.

Watched the highlights last night and what are these people on?

Bosc try ruled out correctly to the point where Woods and Noble were very impressed with Bentham for spotting it and the forward pass was just that. It was blatant.

Have we won a game yet this season on our own without the ref giving us everything?

You wouldn't think so.

There was definitely a tinge of hysteria in some of those knee-jerk posts that appeared on here from other fans yesterday (almost certainly because they were too disappointed by that result to be rational about it).

Noticeably, in the cold light of this morning (and now that we have had a chance to assess the game on TV), there aren't too many more of them. I'd imagine most of those folk are feeling pretty foolish just around now.

looking forward to it!

It could go either way. I think deep down both sets of fans know this. All encounters this season have been close except our win at Widnes in the league. I for one do not want to predict it, just hoping that the boys can do the business.

any serious wigan fans a little disappointed with Cats performance yesterday? Its hard to judge if you were good or Cats terrible, or somewhere inbetween. Your thoughts?

60/40 Wigan better, Cats rubbish.

Most of that was down to Wigan bullying them out of the game. Our defence was very aggressive which they couldn't cope with/didn't fancy and I think there'll be more "roadkill" posters going up at the training base this week.

It was a bit of both really, we played better than last week mainly in tackling & defence etc but were werent superb. Once we got a bit in front it became easier and easier.

Dont believe 90% of the baiting/bites on this thread

Some of them are crackers!

I'd imagine that if Saints were to beat Catalan 44-0, you would need less convincing that your team actually played very well.

Go back to the famous 75-0 beating of Wigan. Did any Saints fans stop to consider the state of free-fall the Wigan club was in at that time, or the glut of Wigan A-teamers on the field that day?

No, and why should they? Because all that mattered was the result.

All this stuff about Catalan playing poorly is tedious nonsense. They are a team who pride themsleves on a big pack and an aggressive, bullying style. Wigan played them at both those games yesterday, and crushed them comprehensively.

We keep hearing that Catalan were tired? But why should they be any more tired than Wigan? We've played more games than them this season and are still coming down from Wembley. It should be the other way round.

It Catalan looked less effective than Saints and Wire fans had been hoping for, it's because Wigan totally battered them.

What a strange comparison. You'd be hard pressed to find a Saints fan that would say Wigan were anything but dog sh*t that day.

Catalans were awful. They were in the game in the first 20 and didn't get the rub of the green, heads went down and they gave up - their effort at times was pitiful and some of the tries conceded were laughable. Cyril Stacul in particular was a farce.

Catalans obviously learned nothing from Wire/Saints recent wins against Wigan as they didn't even try to avoid Wigan numbers in the tackle by lines back on the inside, offloads, finding the floor etc. Wigan were very efficient but by no means scary IMO, much the same as Wire were very efficient against an equally hapless Huddersfield last weekend.

It's interesting the way the goalposts have now shifted from 'Wigan were lucky because the officials are corrupt' to 'Wigan were lucky because Catalan were total crap'.

I'm just wondering which one you guys are eventually going to settle on?

Perhaps you can point me in the direction of my post about the officials being corrupt, I must be sleep-posting.

If you look at the nature of most of the tries scored on Sunday, and Catalans general commitment and execution after the first 15 minutes or so, you'll see why some people are criticising their performance.

Wigan exploited the situation perfectly, and you can only beat what's in front of you, but Catalans were very poor and unfortunately put in a hapless performance in keeping with all of the teams now out of the play-offs.

It's been a pretty dreadful standard of rugby so far and extremely dull.

I'm not talking about you personally. Perhaps I should have made that point, so I apologise. But we had a glut of Saints and Wire fans on here yesterday talking crap about corrupt officials, cheating barstewards etc.

I don't disagree with your point about the standard of play-off rugby being generally low. And I will admit to being baffled as to why Catalan got so tired so quickly. They got pounded by Wigan in the first half, but I don't think that totally explains it.

:3kyr0i1h

Ah OK, I haven't read through everything. I think Catalans had a couple of tough calls, but I thought the ref in general was terrible to be honest, big errors against and in favour of both teams and AGAIN we see a ref officiating a game in a completely different way to how he did just a week earlier.

the French players do seem to struggle in these sort of games and have a tendency to capitulate.

The play-offs have been REALLY disappointing. I just hope Saints and Leeds can turn up and compete next week or the whole thing will have been an abject waste of time and horrible TV, albeit likely to end with a phenomenal final.

Come on folks....lets have some reality, after some silly my dads harder than your dad posts!! Lets forget about all the other games this season....next weekend is a Wigan v St Helens derby match!!!! Not only is it a derby match, but its a play-off semi-final derby match, which equals one humdinger of a bone crunching, high intensity game, for which all other games results mean nothing!!! I already have my tickets and cant wait.....its going to be a cracker!!! Good luck to both teams, its going to be a game that will be a positive advert for the game of Rugby League!!! And im going to be a lucky man to be there to see it!!!

Nervous already, and cant call it!!!
Matt

IMO the reality is we were pap against Saints and they beat us by 8, Catalan were nearly as pap against us last night and we beat them by 44.

We were'nt awesome as some are making out but we showed signs of what we are capable of and made a massaive improvement on the week before.

Saturday will be a great Derby game and I think at this stage it can't be called. POTENTIALLY we are miles better than Saints but will their week off help them or hinder them??

Either way I am mega excited for Saturday and counting down the sleeps already.

to be fair, i'm not sure many wiganers can honestly say that they thought we'd be in this position before yesterdays' game.

in round 1 of the play offs we played pretty badly IMO against saints and were beaten by only 8 points. now we have the monkey of the "mental fatigue" off our backs i feel following yesterdays good performance; we have very little to prove and very much to look forward to.

there is no pressure on wigan to do anything else in the play offs if you ask me and many will be predicting a wire v saints final judging by the play off results so far. saints have it all to do in my opinion.

bring it!

This highlights the farcical nature if the playoffs. Wigan were outplayed and well beaten on their own patch (well, Dave Whelan's patch), but they get another crack at getting to the GF.

There may be something to be said for the old knockout format.

Another one who had a bad day yesterday. I'm so glad.

I had a very good day, thanks for your concern.



Given the evidence of a couple of weeks ago, I don't understand why Wigan think they'll walk all over Saints ?

Is it breathtaking arrogance or plain stupidity ?

I can see Maguire pinpointed Deacon as a weak link, and removed him from yesterdays game, so one problem sorted. However he must be concerned over Paaat's shocking lack of form - looks shot. No confidence, pace of a carthorse, kicking game gone to pieces. Thats where Saints will attack.