So looking at our fixtures prior to Penrith on 24th Feb at the moment we have:

26th Jan - Wakefield A (Friendly)
4th Feb - Hull FC A (Testimonial)
17th Feb - Cas A (SL Rd 1)

So, surely we go strong from the off playing almost full strength at Wakey then full strength at Hull, obviously we will at Cas. I'd even suggest an additional friendly needs to be arranged for 10th/11th Feb. Too long a gap from the Hull game to the Cas game to keep us on point.

By the way, not seen anything relating to Penrith friendlies yet, anything happening there yet? Fully expect a SL team to provide a match and training venue prior to playing us.

Big block of tickets just disappeared from N2, be fantastic if Penrith have organised a supporters trip

20k barrier broken now, should be a great occasion and hopefully a full house under the floodlights.

Are the club allowing the flags to go back above the South Stand again? Wonder if the club themselves have anything big planned apart from the standard pyrotechnics...?

Absolute nonsense mate and you're doing us a massive disservice there. Watch the game again and watch their players reaction to their late try and their reaction to our drop goal. They cared, a lot. To say they treated it as a friendly or took it lightly is just plain wrong and is simply an attempt to play down our achievement, regardless of you saying otherwise.

By the way, 20,000 tickets sold 6 weeks before the game is a fantastic response from the Wigan fans. I'd be made up if that was Saints, fair play.

That would be a problem, the TW Stadium doesn’t hold that many

Haha touche!

The reactions late in a game aren’t going to tell you as much as the general malaise in their play for the first hour did or the fact they decided to rest up Dylan Edwards and Liam Martin. They thought they just had to turn up and you saw the panic in them late on when they realised they were in trouble. It probably didn’t help them the NRL heading it as a R2 pre season game and when they looked around the stands and saw the lowest crowd in donkeys years, that can’t have get the juices flowing either.

As I say, it doesn’t take away from Saints achievement, it was absolutely huge and the disadvantages they overcame were far greater than the fact Penrith took the game extremely lightly.

Players don't react like that if they were treating it as a friendly, that's my point. You're implying they didn't care about the result either way. They clearly did.

As I've said many times before, caring about a result is totally different to preparing properly for the game in the first place. They clearly cared. They're professional sportsman and any defeat hurts. They also clearly underestimated the Saints side. That's on them. However their reaction isn't an indicator of how they approached the game which was definitely lacking. In truth I'd be happy if they approached our game in the same way. Unfortunately it doesn't take a genius to work out that they're unlikely to make the same mistake twice.

As NK says, it doesn't detract from Saints achievement in the slightest just as it wouldn't ours if they come into the game undercooked. You can only beat what's in front of you. The team that approaches the match in the best way, wants it more and executes the best will win. That's the same for any and every game. Excuses are for the losers.

I can't quote again for some reason but replaying to YG above-

I saw their reactions and yes they were disappointed. It looked like the realisation dawned on them suddenly that maybe they should've treated the game with a bit more respect. Did they treat it as a 'Friendly' as I described it? maybe that term is slightly downplaying how they treated the game but I can't sit here and lie and say that I thought they treated that game as they would a GF, a Play off game or even a regular season game and if Saints fans want to think they did, I think you're lying to yourselves but I'm not here to change your opinion.

I said earlier in this thread Saints achievement being a fantastic one can go hand in hand with Penrith not showing the fixture the respect it deserves. Hand on heart opinion-I'm certain we'll be facing a more switched on side, they'll not get caught out twice, they'll beat us by 10+ points and Saints will get even more credit for their win last year on the back of it.

I think the defeat last year will certainly motivate them more, but I have the game much closer in my mind. On Wigan soil and already with a league game under your belts; those two things will bridge the gap. Plus I think the Wigan style will worry them. I think you will play expansive and look to surprise them. It won't be the arm-wrestle type "grind" that they're used to. The bookies are only giving Wigan +4 which I think is about right.

I think we’ll push them definitely but maybe with them pulling away late on.

Well they aren’t playing a warm up game this year so clearly aren’t taking it any more seriously this year, and Wigan get to play this game after they have started their SL season so have a bigger advantage.

See - it’s easy to play things down isn’t it! Wigan fans say this is the real deal cos they lost last year but in the same breath say they didn’t care last year so if they didn’t care last year (having lost previous forays into this game), why would they care now?

Well done for doing the Aussie’s job for them re: perpetuating the excuses though.

At least it's factual and better peddling the lie you guys seem to be all in on.

I saw that Matt Shaw said something like "it was one of the greatest ever sporting achievements in the history of RL". That one really made me laugh. I know journalistic integrity in RL has always been non existent, but come on. Really? I doubt even someone like Trump would get away with BS like that.

Fantastic! I hope they're going into it half-d again and, come the end of February, we've inflicted two defeats in a row on them.

As I said in my previous post, excuses are for the losers.

I'm baffled why it's offensive to Saints fans when opinions are given that Penrith were not at their best and clearly treated the game with a bit of disrespect. You mention above they won't play any warm up fixtures and if that does turn out to be the case (and it looks likely) they clearly cannot be at their very best come the game against us and I've no issue at all in admitting that. Will they be more switched on than that Saints game come kick off? I think it's a nigh on certainty but them not being at their best and playing without warm ups still won't mean any potential Wigan win isn't a great achievement, just as the way in which they treated the Saints fixture didn't take away from your achievement.

Can't believe Penrith would come into the match having played no friendly as prep.

That said we've now sold 21k and I can't see a thousand tickets left on the seat map. What is capacity? Same as Latics/United the other night? Thought we had 24k on vs Saints last Good Friday.

We had 24,275 on GF - and I think most of that drop from 25,200 or whatever the Max capacity is was because of the unreserved H&S issue with the North/South stand were 10% need to be left unsold.
I think sales will be capped around the 23k mark
Long story that I will go into later but part of a review of the whole Stadium etc. and Latics uncovered recently that there were issues with some of the seats that have been damaged over the years.
Sourcing new ones etc. will take some time and forms part of a longer strategy of sprucing up the stadium so they took the decision to "Swap out" Good seats with bad ones.
So there are a couple of thousand seats now at the ends of the North/West/East stands that are not available and will be covered

So just to clarify - they've swapped bad seats with some good ones on the ends of the stands that barely get sat on? A shame that the capacity is reduced as it looks like demand will far exceed supply - a rarity for an RL event. Maybe the club can sell the space over the empty seats to advertisers.

“Capacity” was 22,870 the other night. A real shame to lose a couple of thousand off the crowd.

That + others things is the real world legacy of the last few Latics owners. When you sit back and look at how bad they were, you can only then shake your head when reading some of the current bile directed at Danson by the blue 1/4 of the town.

Basically yes
Without going into too much detail the issues they found with the stadium were many

When the bahrani owners issue was going in late last year early this I mentioned some things on here that the state the Latics club & the Stadium in were unbelievably bad
The Chairman/CE had spent 3 years budget in 1 year and hardly a thing had been done on a stadium that needed Millions (And into the 10's of) on it and was coming up to it's 25 yr safety review etc.
The "improvements" that had been made by the Bahranis were done by Sodexo etc. and were very much visual superficial improvements rather than Infrastructure/safety

When i get a bit more time I'll link an intersting article with an interview with Carolien Molyneux who is Chair of the Latics supporters club
I was interested in lots of stuff in the article for various reasons, but picking out one bit of it that links to this conversation was that she said the owners bought the club last minute to avoid Latics being on the brink of going out of business, not my place to say too much but I can honestly tell you I had a message about 3/4 days before it was announced he'd bought it that said if Danson doesn't agree to buy it they are practically done and that The councillors/MP etc. were let's say "Encouraging" him to help and buy them. There are bits in the interview that intimate he "isn;t a Football man" etc.

However - the point I was making is that in the article she alludes to the owner being amazed/shocked (Not in a good way) or words to that effect when they "Looked under the Bonnett".

The self entitled football fan attitude of spend spend spend is amazing, they have no idea or literally don;t care that they are/were losing £15million a year and/or were that money comes from. Even now a friend of mine showed me a message from a Latics fan stating that the average lossin the championship is £24m a year, wo losing £17million isn't "That bad"!!!!!

The whole club financially is a S**t show and it will take a long time for it to be turned around and made financially sustainable & viable, and I fully expect the vocal minorut yof their fanbase to pile in on Danson etc in the next 12months depsite in their words during both periods of Administration and nearly going into Extinction that they "Just want a club to support no matter what division etc.".
Within days that's all fogot by the majority and they want millions spending

To put some further context on this NK; were Leigh a better team than Wigan last year? The fact that they finished several places below us and lost all their games against us suggests not. Does that detract from their Challenge Cup win? Absolutely not! Does their Challenge Cup win suddenly make them a better team than us? Also absolutely not!

Wigan, as superleague champions, are a good team just as Saints were during their tenure. I'd even hazard a guess that both sides would compete well in the NRL. However, the chances of either winning the title over there would be slim to non existent, especially given the relative cap spends. Penrith have won 3 on the bounce over there so clearly the same could be said for the rest of the teams in that comp, so any win would require Penrith to be off their best, the other team to play to their potential or a combination of both. Why is it offensive or belittling to suggest that the same would have to be the case for a Saints or Wigan win? It's a strange parallel universe you would need to live in not to recognise that simple truth.

100% - see my reply I was writing at the same time as you

Dave Whelan should not get away without criticism either

And even though I know I will be accused of some of going all Happy Clapper that is why Ian Leneghan's Tenure should not be underestimated
How he took over the S**T show of 2006/7 and turned the club around in 2 years to being a financially stable standalone operation, whilst having the success of 2010 to 2023 was amazing.
But IMO his biggest achievement/success was and always will be how he has managed to transisition the clubs ownership to Mike Danson in a successful way ensuring the long term potential of the club is maximised with the new owners, after 2-3 years of Due Diligence
Something that 99% of fans will pay little attention to

You are not "happy clappy" what you are and some more level headed fans are,is that we should give a massive thanks to Ian for his tenure at the helm of this great club,and bringing Danson in and how he went about the business was sheer genius.I for one salute Ian Lenaghan.I have spoken to him at the end of season/beginning of season gatherings and what came through is his love of the club so much.