I too am concerned with the feeling that Saints owe us one. It may be their turn to have a day in the sunshine after a few years of disappointment.

But having said that as Maguire constantly says, it is all about performance. If our boys perform as they can, we should win.

Saints 28
Wigan 24

Not feeling too confident about this one. Also we have never won a Challenge Cup Semi Final at the HJ Stadium

We'd never won a game at HJ until Maguire



IN MADGE WE TRUST!!!

If you just look at scorelines then there is no way that Wigan would beat Wire. They are handing out 50 point hammerings to half the SL. Saints have a bit of a role on and have Pryce back.

On the plus side the Wigan defence is the best in SL; its how teams react when every pass they throw or every break they make(sounds like a song) does not result in a try. Its also how they react when the other team will not give in. Wigans pack and defence to give them the edge. The fear factor when playing Saints has been taken away; a couple of years ago the thought of a game against the Saints was enough to put the team on the back foot.

Hopefully now it's the opposite and Saints are on the back foot before we begin. They've been soundly beaten a couple of times by Wigan recently including the Grand Final and then when they did turn up and play very well we pipped them in the last minute which must mentally be very tough.

On the plus side for Saints though as that they had a couple of big players missing in all those games and now they're back. That in itself should be enough to outweigh the fear factor of playing Wigan.

I'm just happy we can go into this game as favourites. 5 years ago I'd have settled for losing by less then 20 points against these men but things have changed.

I'd go with (fingers crossed):

Wigan 32
Saints 18

1st Try: George Carmont
M.O.M: Brett Finch

Wigan 18

Saints 25

1st Try - Puletua

MOM Roby

In all honesty, I don’t have a great feeling about this one but I never do against Saints, they are a quality team who can punish us. We just need to perform like we did against them at Widnes and we win though. Shutting down Roby again is the key. We know we can beat St Helens, we know how to beat St Helens, it’s just a matter of doing the business.

Predictions:

Wigan 22 – 18 St Helens

1st Try – Pat Richards
MOM – Sam Tomkins

Wigan 27 St Helens 0

Wigan 24 Saints 20

Wigan have to be favourites and I expect a win.

However, unlike the Warrington game, my money is staying in my pocket for this one.......

Wigan 76 - 0 St Helens

how anyone can be so worried about this game is beyond me.

we don't have the fear factor of big games anymore under MM. we don't have the HJ hoodoo anymore. we definitely know how to beat saints these days. i can't see anything other than a wigan win, it may be cherry and white tinted glasses and you'd be right to assume so, but for large parts of the Wire v wigan game we didn't perform to our best and we still cained them.

don't get me wrong i think it will still be a topsy turvy entertaining game but wigan to win by 11-15 points is my bet

did i read somewhere that Graham is out due to a neck injury and suffering from spasms in his spine or something or did i dream that ???

He'll play.

Wigan to win by 10.
1st try - Carmont
MOM - Finch

Wigan 32 - 18 Saints

First Try scorer: Charnley
MOM: Finch

Cant beleive the amount of doubters still

Wigan by 20-30 points, Sam to score at least 2 and take MOM.

Wigan 32-16 Saints

Close for 65 minutes, then we'll kill them off. I know you can't really call cup matches - especially derbies, but we've had the measure of Saints of late and I think we'll do them. Our lads will be up for this.

MOM - Pat

I'll have what you're on!

To be honest, I think you've got the measure of us at the moment. Perhaps Pryce being back will give us a little edge back in, but if the two teams turn up in a similar vein as the game at the Stobart, then it'll hardly be a contest.
If Saints turn up and play well, we could well score some points against you, but I fancy we'd need to either have a 10 point cushion or be on the ascendancy with 10 mins to go, otherwise we'll let another big result slip through our fingers.

Not a score prediction,but Wigan by at least 10.

He had a bulging disc which apparently has probably gone back into place. He lost power to his legs and had back spasms as a result. The power has returned to his legs but the spasms remain. He's 50:50 for the match.

Graham will turn up and could play the game of his life, Wigan will still win. Justice for Stains continually breaking the salary cap for 15 years

I'm pretty sure he'll play but if that's actually what's wrong with him there's no way he should be anywhere near a rugby pitch this weekend.