They will be the 20-25 minutes that could win us the game though I feel.

If we can hang on when Walmsley is on the field and not end up 3 scores behind early then his offloads could break things open for us.

Fully agree.

I think it’ll be quite late when we see him (possibly after half time) and it’s so important we stick there or thereabouts until that time because if we can get him 8-10 carries in the time he’s on the field, there’s a chance he can crack something open for us. I hope we chance our arm tomorrow and really move the ball. I’ve no issue with us going conservative for the first 20-25 mins but we’ll need to open up at some point to trouble them.

I was thinking more in terms of Miski playing in which case French will be on the right. If it's Halsall then it could be either but I still think he'll be on the right but could stay on the left. I think he played left last week because Thornley was in the side which he won't be this week.

That’s a point. At least Saints will be as in the dark as we are. I’d like to see French somewhere around Hurrell but Makinson has been playing on the left with Percival, so that side is very strong for them and they may want to put French over there with Bateman.

I think he needs something of a roaming brief if he's on the right. His footwork last week looked to be getting back to what we know he's capable of. I think it would be too much for Hurrell even with relatively little space.

Not reading 25 pages to get the general consensus but having watched all of Wigan's games this season there's got to be concerns over a lot of these 'middle' forwards longer term. It might be tactical to build fitness through the season and peak at the end but right now nobody looks capable of making good ground consistently, really missing a big enforcer to lead the younger lads. You'd think Mago would be the one to do it but very disappointed with what he's given so far, too occupied with getting an offload away rather than getting on the front foot. His stats from yesterday are a disgrace - 22 metres from 7 carries! Even if he's getting flat ball from dummy half he's getting dominated in the contact every time to only make that pitiful average gain.

Havard looks a great prospect but does he have any intention of staying long term? By all accounts Melbourne were after him a couple of years ago and if he keeps performing it's only a matter of time before the NRL interest comes back.

Singleton got some good aggression defensively but you need more, he's coming into his peak now and I'd expect better from someone at this stage of his career.

Byrne is doing OK but is crying out for a starting partner who he can play off. You wouldn't be starting him at all at ideally but needs must.

Partington, not going to make it for me. Been playing regularly for a few seasons now and he's powder puff in the carry and full of dumb errors and discipline. Needs massive improvement.

Jury out on Ellis, needs a regular run before we can really evaluate.

Back row is fine, could upgrade on Isa with KPP (another who probably won't stay though!) and Smithies is another positive, he is being brought through well behind the established players and should be playing 13 for a good few years.

thats been the issue for 3 years now

Been a while since we had stats like this so May as well enjoy them

Singleton 11 carries for 97m

Bryne 8 for 81m

Farrell 12 for 122m

Bateman 14 for 119m

Smithies 10 for 73m

Mago 12 for 132m

Havard 9 for 87m

Ellis 16 for 128m

Cust, Miski, Bevan, Halsall all over 100m and Field 200m

Interesting that yet again Powell didn’t register one carry, will be interesting whoever plays at hooker if they run or not.


Think Byrne Singleton Havard Mago Ellis is a really solid 5 props.

People say we lack size but

Singleton 6ft 2 108kg

Mago 6ft 2 113kg

Havard 6ft 3 102kg

Byrne 6ft 2 113kg

Ellis 6ft 3 106kg

All can play big minutes bar Mago but he gives a bit of Xfactor. Was good to see Ellis offload yesterday hope we see more of it.

Yesterday was the first time them 5 have played together. Fingers crossed we can keep that settled.

Yeah the Wigan pack is as good as anyone in SL now. If Saints pick up another key injury the door will be wide open……

Terrific numbers across the board there and even that doesn't tell the whole story. We were excellent on the back of those metres too. Offloads, crisp passing and good attacking shape throughout the match.

I made a point on the Good Friday thread that none of our players even came close to their best whereas Saints had several at or around theirs. Yesterday we had season's best performances (Makinson, Paasi) from Singleton, French while he was on and Smith and others at their usual top standard (Roby, Percival etc) in the likes of Field, Faz and so on. The result was a drubbing for Wakefield who's players performed nowhere near their best. That's the nature of any team sport.

Where Saints have it over us at the moment is their ability to do that more often and in the big games. That's where the challenge lies. There's nothing wrong with our potential or ability. We have match winning players all over the park. They need to be able to do it when it matters and I back Peet to get us there.

Peet had clearly noted the issue on Friday and where we will need to get to if we’re to challenge Saints, when he said he’d discussed us not having any ‘dips’ over the course of the 80 mins. That is where Saints are so good, they play for 80 minutes and never have a real lull, certainly not in big games anyway. We went toe to toe for 30 mins on Friday and whilst that’s nowhere near enough, I felt it was our first 30 mins of doing that against them since the 2020 Grand Final. We now need to work towards increasing that. The easiest way to do that is to take your chances when they come along and that gives you a mental lift and energises you.

It shows you can make metres against Wakey...Not so easy against the big boys..

So what you're saying is it's harder against the better teams than the lesser ones? Better go have a lie down after working that one out. You must be exhausted.

That's the challenge. We had moments in that game where we could have changed momentum significantly but, unlike Saints, didn't take them. The first bombed try for example. We then scored the next chance and could have been 10 up at that point (I know it isn't as simple as that, but you get my point). Even allowing for the bombed try we don't reset after scoring and immediately allow Saints to respond. Credit to them for that but equally that's an area of improvement we need to make. Then Batty going into touch on the first tackle when we were in a good attacking position and Saints coming all the way up the field to go ahead. These are all instances where we didn't challenge Saints to do something extraordinary in order to score. It's all fixable but we need to play for every minute of the 80.

Playing them as often as we will do this season will help the progression IMO. I don’t think Peet will let their heads drop as they seemed to under Lam and hopefully we just keep seeing improvements game on game. I think we need a couple of real quality additions in the outside backs to nail those moments you get but that’ll be for next year, so for this season it’s all about the players we have conditioning themselves to the intensify they need to reach to match them in an energy battle and you never know what could happen in a one off game like a semi or a final. The first thing I think we need to look at is making sure we have centres in the team who can nail a pass under pressure. I don’t think we’re a chance against them this season with a second rower and Bibby in the centres. We’re not going to go through the middle of them, so we need to make sure our skill is good enough on the edges.

Not trying to pour scorn on what you or Phuzzy are saying as you make some valid points. I agree that there is a lot of improvement in this Wigan side and Good Friday showed that. However not sure you can use that Saints performance as a barometer. If everything goes according to plan we will have Grace, Sironen and Matautia back for the semi final. That completely changes our left edge in both attack and defence. I'm not even including Hopoate in this argument.

The point I''m making is that our pack will be much better come the SF. Lets not forget also that Knowles only played 20 mins last Friday. So whilst you make pertinent points about your 5 props rotating well, our pack too should be even better in a couple of weeks.

Not really sure what you’re trying to point out that I don’t know already. Saints are a better side and were missing a few players (We were missing a few as well btw). I’m not overly concerned with the semi final, I’m talking how we improve over the next 12 months plus and close the gap. Getting anything from the semi would be a surprising bonus but hopefully we see some progress and we keep seeing that as we go along and keep playing you guys.

Apologies I've got the wrong end of the stick there.

Yeah I agree with what you are saying. I think Peet will bring about further improvements, I've been impressed with him both on and off the field.

No doubts mate. I have no issues with you saying you also have improvements in you, although I do think Dodd will be a loss to you as Tommy could be for us depending on today's prognosis. I'm hopeful Tommy will return for us though.

The fact that there is improvement in Saints doesn't really affect what I'm saying though. Had we performed anywhere near our best, maybe even with a few season best performances in there too, and come up very short then the picture would be a lot less hopeful. However we were so far away from that with perhaps only Tommy even performing at the better end of his potential, that I don't really think we learned a lot from Friday beyond what we already knew: Saints are currently the better side and we won't beat you with anything less than our best.

Let me just say this though; I said before the game that the result will not define our season, win or lose. That's still the case. I understand how, as Saints fans, this feels like Wigan can't beat you but that isn't the case. Enjoy the result and the bragging rights by all means but to paraphrase a famous saying "the reports of this season's death have been greatly exaggerated". There's still a long way to go and a lot of rugby still to be played.

From a purely forward point of view and from what I'm hearing from my mate who works at Wigan, Harvey Hill is the next cab off the rank and potentially will be better than Havard and any of the younger props by a distance.

hes been excellent, has been since the scholarship

I like the look of the other young prop, Max Wood, as well. Will also be interesting to see how Nsemba develops.

Sironen banned again, Saints might as well have kept hold of Bentley and saved a quota spot

Be interested to see our forwards stats, that was the worst I have seen Mago from a looking knackered perspective, he was blowing within 5 minutes of being on the field and couldn’t get back to the line, I understand this is the norm for him and he has put up pretty good numbers at times but if anything he seems to be going backwards. Is he not taking it serious over here? I am sure when we signed him somebody was posting his numbers from the NRL and NSW cup and he was doing pretty long minutes and putting up big numbers. On the flip side Kaide Ellis (who at the time I thought looked an uninspiring signing) I thought was very good again and seems to potentially be the front row we have been crying out for years for who can go about his business fairly unspectacularly but do decent minutes and churn out around 100m a game.