Cue Matty Smith, the best wet weather SH in SL......

I've been like that all season and I thought it was simply a case of get our better players back on the field and we'll be fine. I must admit my confidence has been eroded these past few weeks though. We've had a better side on the pitch and have had no more injuries then most of the teams we've faced but something doesn't feel right. Our attitude and determination looks as poor as I've seen it for a while. I think confidence is low and the players looks like they're only allowed to express themselves when we've got ten minutes to pull out backsides out of the fire.

Tonight is huge! Saints are weakened (but so are we) but even so a solid, determined and confident display could really but some doubts to bed. We need to get the win tonight to use it as a platform for the back end. If we don't I'm starting to doubt we've got enough games left to build any proper momentum up.

I'm desperate for us to win at Old Traffird this year. The club has taken so much sh*te from opposition clubs and supporters this year that a win in the Grand Final would be the sweetest of them all IMO. I think that desperation is bringing a bit of pessimism out in me.

Agreed was just going to post similar, big game for me, the players, fans and the club need to get some confidence back, need to finish in the top 2, the "Tics" are away semi final w/end so no ground issues, still can't get " full side " out but they have suspensions, need a performance and a win !!

Although I'm down beat, I still want us to win as much as ever. My comments and mainly born out of frustration, and of the mentality that Wane cannot get us playing to our potential. That said, I hope to God he proves me wrong and we go out and play some stunning rugby league over the next month or so. I'll be the first one to sing SW praises if this happens and my gob will be well and truly shut.

What a surprise, absolutely dead on here after a big win. The whinge brigade have nothing to say for once.

Well done Shaun, great defence..awful attack..best of two awful teams.

No pots again this year, one out stuff all the time, you need serious help.

Huge win.

We wasnt great, a lot of unforced errors, but that was exactly what the whole club needed, hopefully this will kick us on for the rest of the play offs now.

You not been banned yet?

Turn it in pal, weve just nilled Saints in a derby. Dont let your agenda get in the way of enjoying it.

Ssshhh, your not allowed to be positive DaveO and his mates will hunt you down.

I seem to remember it being very quiet on here during the 7 match unbeaten run aswell.

As Rogues said in another thread "Players win games, coaches lose them"

Banned for telling the truth...Hmm..jog on Muppet

Enjoyed the scoreline, not the mistake ridden low quality game

Great defence..nothing else...

Keep clapping

Crowd unhappy due to the clueless attack, or did i imagine that...

What do we say after that? It's a 25-0 win against St Helens and that is always going to be a great win but ultimately we were the least bad of two very poor teams on the night.

I'm as far from the whinge brigade as you can get on here but I can't sit here and post that I'm back to believing we're going to come good in a big way once all our players are back.

It's a starting point for us but we're going to need to improve ten fold come the play off semi's.

I have thought the same can't beat a "the game was that bad I left at half time" "worst I've seen in 50 years" every loss is jumped on, they just can't wait to slag the team off

Do you seriously think that SW would stop what he's doing just to post on this forum only minutes after a big derby win? Or are you just winding the poster up?

I'll run the risk of getting shot down for being remotely positive.

Whatever anyone thinks about the game itself as a Wigan fan how can you not enjoy beating St Helens 25 - 0? I said to the Mrs about 20 mins in whichever team keeps hold of the ball will win, as it turned out neither did that very well. Although we made a lot of errors at least 3 or 4 should have been penalties. I thought we looked to chance our arm more than we have done this season. A few offloads which was good to see, I've been calling for that for several years. I'm sure the St Helens fans will criticise their attack but I think our defence was superb, we nullified everything, the only time they looked at all dangerous was the odd occasion they got a quick play the ball. The most notable difference in the Wigan performance was the composure shown.

On a side not, was I the only one when Gelling was running 80 meters to the line thinking 'please just put the ball down and don't try anything stupid'?

Of course I would

Well i think your wrong.

People are not slagging the team off.

The players are working very hard and busting a gut to get these vital wins.

The fact that there seems to lack of intelligent game plan, bench choice..etc is the coach / coaches fault.

We have a lot of talented players, we could win both cups and shield with the players we have.

But we don't, we haven't won anything for years at a club with probably the biggest resources in the league.

That's why a 25-0 over Saints is a superb result, but it doesn't solve the bigger problems we have.

Saw him on his phone straight after the win...

Someone wake Twitchy Ar5ehole up and tell him we've nilled Stains

Let's meet up Lad and see who is Twitchy? Arsehole.
ive taken some stick of you soft lad and said nowt even though there were obvious open goals but the gloves are off so come on offer me something of your obvious superior wisdom that can convert me from a moron?

Good result very average performance sums it up for me. That may be a little harsh given the defence on display which was obviously very good, although rarely was it tested but when it was we passed the test Saints posed us.

Attack was still shocking and our ability to hold the ball and complete sets poor but conditions played a part in that as well.

Very impressed with the bench today really made a difference. The extra zip round the ruck when we rotated the hooker was a real bonus and something we have not seen at Wigan for a number of years.

Smiths in game management was much better and he has one of his better games although again some of his passing accuracy was shocking, were it better we could have comfortably run in a few more.

Gelling and Bateman were the highlight for me, but I think credit to Faz who went about his business with quiet efficiency and Tomkins who again was controlling everything from the back.

Overall for me it was a 6 out of 10, but that's all it needed to be so can't bag the team for that. Don't think we got out of 3rd gear but we didn't have to.

That's a fair assessment. I thought our discipline was much improved (we gave away our first penalty with 10 seconds left to go to half time) despite Saints slowing us down, constant offsides and forcing knock-ins with hands in the all at the tackle.

That said we threw a couple of forward passes and suffered a number of times due to lost ball through Gelling, Flower, Sarginson and Gildart (who had a game to forget).

They were poor, there's no doubt but our defence snuffed them out and they never really looked like scoring despite their good spell in the first half where they forced us to drop out 3-4 times.

I thought Farrell got better as they game went on, Bateman was his usual self and Gelling was very good, deserved MOM.

A good win but still lots of improvement needed from us if we are to progress past the semi finals (especially if its Hull or Wire away). I came away from the ground pretty pleased as it was a definite improvement on last weeks performance as Cas where I thought our discipline was poor.

Thought Tautai was brilliant again too. He was all over the place in defence and some solid carries.

Good post, agree with all of that. It was the right performance for the right time and still enough encouragement that we can build from here - we hope. Farrell looked off the pace last week but he was on the money last night, we've missed his attacking threat. Same with Gells.

Johnh do these ups and downs in form have anything to do with the conditioning? Should we expect slumps at certain points in the season? Maybe that's why we're always poor around summer.

I feel the same. Great to nil them, effort was great. A few better individual performances and at times we seemed to look more comfortable moving the ball around. We are still waiting though for an all round performance, still way too many errors.

One thing I will say, however bad we were in the last game, Saints were even worse last night. Yes we defended well, but the effort in attack from Saints was as bad as I've seen from any team in a long long time.