Don’t take things personal Stu. Insults aren’t usually what you’re about.

Saints have thrown this narrative around for the last few years that players play for peanuts, they don’t do marquee spots etc but people can’t be expected to believe that. What could a prime Walmsley have expected to be offered in the NRL? I’d say upwards of 500k, so let’s not make out that guys like him and Knowles are going hungry in comparison to Thompson. No doubt about it, Thompson will be on a great deal and looking at him this season, he deserves it. He was absolutely superb on Friday (and he has been in every other game for us) and I find it highly amusing that a fan base that ‘Doesn’t care about Thompson’ have spent their weekends trying to play down how good he was. Alex Walmsley was the best player on the field, with Thompson and Brad O’Neill in a group along with guys like Knowles and Matautia behind that.

Ok I get it. You won the Waney Wigan way.
Your mom was a prop making next to no yards. No longer the entertainers but the grinders lol.
Saints throughly deserved the win. I’ve no complaints whatsoever.

Don’t get me wrong your defence is superb. On its day the best defence I’ve ever seen from an English team.
I’ve actually tipped you to win the LLS this so I respect and acknowledge your team’s capabilities.
You acknowledge that your attack was off. It’s been off now for over a season so I’m not sure how you are going to improve it now. Not sure of the possession percentages on GF but I suspect it was huge in Saints favour. How are you going to improve your attack?

We haven’t fired this season except for the Penrith game. Am I worried about that ? Yes a little but last season we proved that we can and do get it right for the big games. Our passing all season as lacked that crispness and your top class defence ensured that we didn’t get that crispness back on GF. Do I think that our attack will get better? Absolutely. Our passing couldn’t get any worse.

If Passi was fit I assume that he would replace Wingfield who played very few minutes and seemed reluctant to take the ball in on a few occasions so a definite plus for you when he plays.
If Bell plays who do you drop? Batchelor, Whitley or Sironen? An excellent impact player replacing 3 excellent backrow players so an improvement but maybe some downsides as well.

Walters would replace Nsemba. He would give us more power and variation plus Nsemba played zero minutes. A definite big plus for us.
Havard would replace Mago. For me Havard is the best young English prop in the game. A massive plus for us particularly as Mago played about 10 minutes.
Cooper would replace Byrne. A better prop especially going forward.

For me with 2 full packs we would be a lot more competitive than we were on GF and it’s where I think that this enable our backs to play more fluently and give your defence more problems.

Enjoy your GF victory as I would if we had won. I’m quietly confident that we can and will turn the tables over the course of the season barring major injuries.
By the way Stu was that you in Sainsbury’s yesterday with the Saints shirt on?

I’ll try and reply to a few points in one post.

Firstly it wasn’t me in Sainsburys. I don’t wear replica shirts and I’m currently in Spain (got her yesterday and getting pelters off the wife for being on my phone but I love a debate)

I came on here after the game to acknowledge Wigans part in such a great game. They are an outstanding team and the next time we play it will be a genuine 50/50 possibly Wigan being slight favourites. They muscled up superbly and despite all our first half territory we couldn’t score.

I just can’t fathom how it seems to be a given that the next time we play as long as Wigan play better it’s fine.

Who is to say we don’t improve our attack? Welsby and Lomax have been relatively quiet all season but what if one of them fires?

Yes Wigans pack may be better next time with returning players but ours could be too with Passi and Bell.

Bell has interchanged superbly all season with Knowles and given us another dimension.

I just feel there’s a distorted view of Wigan playing better next time and rolling us.

If they do I’ll come on here and hold my hands up.

Edit- Saints fans mention Thompson because from what I’ve been reading I thought Payne Haas had played for Wigan. In reality there were 3 better Saints forwards (IMO) and when I mention salary I’m doing it to refer to output v salary. You’d have change left from Knowles and Walmsley combined compared to Thompson and that for me is important.

The figures mentioned was 1 million over 4 years. Theres no way those 2 dont command that figure between them.

Anyway enjoy your holiday I know you love your sun.

Shock horror a Wigan forum backing there own team, bit salty there stu. I do think your side is on it way out, the niggling in the ruck throwing arm up for pens I’ve always seen that as a side who can’t cope with a game. We picked up at the right time last year and our side is arguably better this season so obviously we feel we will get better. Watching saints stumble through sets in attack the same as last year no I don’t see how it improves. You mention about Walmsley he did very little until we had 12 on the field at the end when he went on that run. I thought Matatiua sironin and lees were great. Always thought Percival was a decent centre but nothing more now the sides on the decline he’s average. Bachelor I do rate him he didn’t stand out but again was injured. If teams attack Bennison they know he can’t defend and same with Hurrell, can’t turn save his life that man so is going to get found out like last GF. I’m more worried about Catalan than I am about Saints. If you don’t like what’s said on here you know what to do

Apart from practically every discussion he gets into where Wigan fans won't share his love-in with Saints.

On a couple points raised on Thompson: He's been superb every time he's payed this season. Even in a match where the team was down to 12 men for a third of the game (notoriously hard for forwards to make yards under those circumstances as certain posters know) he pretty much matched the best Saints had to offer even though he was apparently "dominated"



On his Salary: if he's earning more than those two combined I'll eat my hat. Even if it were true why would it matter? It's not as if it's affecting our ability to sign or retain players. We have the best squad in Superleague and that's a universal opinion, not a Wigan fan's one.

Interesting to hear a neutrals view on the Superleague Raw review of the game (Wire fan, so no love for either) and I think taking all Wigan and Saints fans debates aside, he’s just about right-

Walmsley best player on the field.

Mentions for Knowles, Thompson and O’Neill also.

Staggered Lees got man of the match

A 3-2-1 points award of Walmsley, Knowles and O’Neill but he said O’Neill would’ve got 3 had Wigan held out.

Red card probably turned the game but hard to say. Also agreed with the decision of red and thought the yellow might be a red.

Agreed with Wellens that the intensity/quality of the fixture is as close to Origin as we’ll see in this country currently.


All pretty fair comments. In all the points scoring against each other, I think we as Wigan and Saints fans can sometimes miss just how special this rivalry is at the minute. The teams are as close in quality terms as I can remember in my time watching the sport.

I think you’ve missed the emphasis if both teams have a full set of forwards available. Maybe you missed it or you think what I posted is a load of rollocks. I’m pretty confident that with 2 full sets of forwards our potential for overall improvement beats yours.

Welsby had his quietest game against us probably since he started playing but maybe Lomax/Dodds/Clark hadn’t got the game on Friday or haven’t got it at all when it’s hey lads hey. Welsby is a fine player and so is Field when he’s on his game.
Lomax is in the twilight of his career. It’s not a criticism just an acknowledgment of fact. A top class player at his best but he hasn’t really fired now for over a season.

Anyway I’m already looking forward to the next battle. Hopefully we both get through to the CCSF and we can have another rerun with hopefully a different result.

I enjoy debating with rival fans. Would be a bit boring if we all held the same opinion. If you want me to not post just because I have a different opinion then that’s a shame

I should post with a

emoji like Phuzzy does to mask the fact he’s a condescending patronising p***k who argues with his own fans on here.

I reacted to NK who is normally a great poster who suggested that Saints players play for free which I felt was a daft comment from a normally great balanced poster.

I agree with you about Lomax and feel we got it wrong with his contract extension.

I think we are now on the verge of a rivalry similar to Utd and Arsenal im the late 90s, early noughties and Liverpool and City now.

Depending on our recruitment and which of the Academy players “make it” it’s looking likely that Wigan will have the better of the next few years but it will still be an unbelievable rivalry and one that is streets ahead of the rest of the comp.

Some players will need to be replaced on both sides. The big questions for Wigan are Field and French and then Saints have some big players coming to the back end, with no obvious replacements jumping out from outside the club but it’s tough to see either club falling away dramatically for a good while.

One thing we haven’t had is many finals between the clubs (not that we could attend anyway) but I can’t see how we won’t have a couple in the next few years. I read opposition fans saying it’s boring seeing a Wigan v Saints final ‘again’ but not sure where they get that from. We’ve not had a challenge cup final between us for 20 years and we’ve had 1 Grand Final in the last 9 seasons (and no fans could go). I can only imagine how intense a final would be between the sides at the minute!

Not like Stu that is it NK?

To summarise. Saints fans “lol we dominated you and Thompson is rubbish”

Wigan fans “even though we were utterly dominated there is nothing to worry about and we are still streets ahead of saints”

I think that’s a fair assessment of the salt and tears from both fans.

As a Wigan fan I was very happy to hear his 2 year extension.
Lomax of 3 or 4 years ago and you would have had Friday’s game sown up by half time.

At the moment you have the advantage in the forwards, particularly in the backrow where personally in a combined team I would pick at least 2 players from Saints. Until Walters and maybe Nsemba become regular starters/players unless conditions are dry and firm we will struggle to dominate against your pack.

Overall I think our backs trump Saints and for me when our pack can compete and obtain 50% possession then that is when we may win more than we lose against you.

Interesting times.

I mentioned pregame that Wigan haven’t beaten Saints with Walmsley playing for a great number of years.

Felt he was the difference on Friday. What a player. Even at 34 he’s still killing it.

I took a non RL fan who was totally new to the sport and he picked up within the first 10mins what a monster he was.

He also mentioned Saints looked a lot bigger than Wigan. I’d be excited to have Walters for Isa in the backrow and Havard somewhere on the bench to match size wise.

He played last Good Friday didn’t he?

Strangely enough I thought the opposite. During the warm ups I thought Wigan looked bigger. Byrne and Mago are huge bodies although it could be perception given Wigan were in t shirts and we were in hoodies.

I think the next game on a drier track will see Wigan shift it wide early with their superior back line. For some reason Peet seemed to take us on down the middle in a grind which is our game now. The Entertainers tag has long gone.

I think it's a fair assumption that Wigan will be a lot, lot better next time out. Wigan made 14 errors in the first 50 minutes (penalties, errors and six agains; see the 'Saints (a) thread for reference), that's nearly one every two minutes with ball in play!

Furthermore, I think it's pretty unlikely we'll be playing half an hour with 12 men, next time out. If we do, we'll only have ourselves to blame.

And finally, sport tends to even itself out. Saints got the rub of the green with the Lees head contact being missed. Like him or loathe him, Rob Hicks has gone on record that that is the type of tackle that they're trying to get rid of. The next tackle Dupree gets sin binned. The video ref also recommends yellow for Byrne, but Kendall chose red. All the small moments went Saints way.

Despite all of the above, after 73 mins, Wigan were winning the game.

I can see why after the game Matt Peet was optimistic and confident for us going forward, he knows a lot more about RL than anyone on this board.

To be fair. Stu is right. You are at king warrior levels of being utterly clueless about rugby league yet thinking you know more than everyone else. I think you might have even surpassed king warrior which I never thought would ever happen. Well done!

Yeah and if my Aunty had balls etc…

I’d love to know where you get your stats from as the official ones show us completing 2 less sets and making 5 more errors.

Incidentally when you did have 13 on the field you didn’t make a single break. Not one.

Also everyone has conveniently ignored the fact that we lost Percival for the same amount of time that Byrne was off which meant a prop playing centre regardless of how good he is.

We were also down an interchange with Batchelor going off too. But hey let’s just assume that Wigan wipe the floor with us next time just by making less errors.

The pitch will be Saints saving grace at the start and back end of the season. It’s a disgrace and a serious accident will happen on that surface before long.

Im sure Sky said its being relaid in the summer

Coming from you, I'll take that as a ringing endorsement. A union troll telling me I know nothing about rugby league! Fabulous!

Whatever the relationship between Stu and myself is at present, I feel confident in saying he'd prefer not to have you in his corner.

Anyone know what waqa blake has been upto?