In case anyone is feeling very depressed about how good Saints are their dominance is likely to come to an end next couple of years.

Woolf no doubt be an option for an NRL top job (I wouldn’t recommend going to West’s though)

Roby will finish soon (looks like he could play forever though)

Walmsley, Lomax both 32 this year, Makinson 31.

Lees is an NRL target and word is that Dodd fancies it at some point too.

Grace is a union target.

With success comes the longing for new challenges.

No doubt these players will be replaced with quality signings and academy prospects though.

I must say I’d hope Saints can keep their players together and Wigan just get up to their level rather than wait for them all to leave haha!

A great benchmark team is good for the competition. Would have loved to seen Saints play Penrith in the WCC this year but wasn’t to be.

Wigan have very high standards and I get that if we’re not the best we aren’t good enough but this is year 1 of Peet.

Last year we could barely score a try even against the bottom teams.

Now this year the style of play is much improved, connection with the fans improved massively.

Yes we are comfortably behind Catalans and Saints but we’re moving in the right direction.

If it was us in this position with guys like Welsby, Dodd, Lees, Knowles etc there is no doubt we’d be ripped apart but they do a good job of keeping their squad together. What they will have is a number of players looking for whopping increases. Going off the quality of them against their Superleague peers, there’s cases for 7 or 8 asking for marquee deals and obviously they can’t all get them. It’ll take some creative accounting to keep them relatively in tact. If we’re paying the same for our squad as there’s currently, we’ve got players being grossly overpaid and they’ve got guys being underpaid.

I think it’s an interesting phase for Saints next year.

Firstly losing Roby can’t be underestimated. His performance on the pitch has been great so far this year (probably the best hooker in England so far), but it’s his influence off the pitch where it’s really going to matter. A lot has been mentioned about Saints “culture” since the game yesterday but so much of it stems from the standards he sets every day. If Lomax/ Makinson/ Walmsley pick that standard up and continue, then that will really go a long way to continuing the success we have had recently.

On the pitch, you would expect Lussick will be a direct replacement for Roby after a year of education, with either Smith returning or Pemberton stepping up into the team. Amor and Hurrell are likely simple internal replacements in Norman and Simm (assuming they stay) which then frees up money to either keep Grace/ Lees/ LMS or find upgrades for them (assuming we trigger Mata’utia and Paasi’s 1 year options). Two props in one recruitment season is a tall order but it might be made easier by a certain ex-Saints prop deciding the NRL is overrated and comes back for a mere 75k on the cap

Johnstone to replace Grace wouldn’t be bad either

It speaks volumes you concentrate on saints negatives rather than Wigan’s positives. Saints will be fine. They are the biggest club In SL with the best academy.

Bar the biggest club, with best academy bit, which we know isn’t true, I agree. We can no way just sit here pinning our hopes on Saints imploding. Where there is a will, there is a way when it comes to keeping a squad together and Saints will find a way IMO. There will be the odd exit they’d like to avoid, Roby will retire and Woolf will probably go but we don’t want to sit waiting for another 5 years for Saints to start showing cracks.

We need to sit here in a couple of years and thank Saints for dragging our standard up. We’re not Salford, Wakey, Cas etc and we don’t ever want to compete by other teams standards falling. The actual best academy in the UK will always ensure we’re there or thereabouts but we need to work out how we supplement that adequately to close the gap of our own accord.

Another good win for Saints today missing just the 5 players

Huddersfield only missing 9 first choice players

A strange choice from Watson if he chose to change more than a few of those. Unfortunately, Lewis Dodd’s season injury just been confirmed; bad news for Saints and England, I think he would have partnered Lomax in the halves in the WC. Really disrupts Saints for the rest of the year too.

Not sure that was ever your point mate haha.

All jokes aside shocking news for Dodd being ruled out for the season. Huge blow for him. The way he was going he wouldn’t have been far off an England call up.

Roby stepped into 7 today but it’ll be interesting what we do long term this season now. Hopoate to 1 and Welsby to 7 is the other option.

Dreadful news. All the joking with YG aside, I really don’t wish any injuries on them and certainly not to a kid like that. He’s been a pleasure to watch and I’m England first, even before Wigan, so it is a blow.

Really sad news mate. He was well on his way to a World Cup squad place. I can’t even recall him going off. I remember he was down at one point holding his wrist but that news took me by surprise.

It was in back play during our last try, about 15 left I think. He was hobbling off as Percival scored.

It doesn’t add weight to the Easter argument with it being the first game of the two but these Monday games need to go. The games too tough to put players through this. I’m sure other lads will have dropped today with injuries and the Monday games are free wins for the likes of Wigan and Saints with deep squads.

I’m sure everyone on here said Saints DON’T have depth?!



You always hear players and coaches say it’s the game after the Easter weekend where they feel it most too. Saints the only team out of all 12 having to play 3 in 8 days so I’m sure we’ll see a few changes for the Cas game Friday.

I see Ryan Hall is quite vocal on Twitter today about it too saying they schedule needs to go. Gareth Carvell the same last week.

Of course Saints have depth, the comments simply were that we won’t lose as much with 5 or 6 injuries because the quality drop off isn’t as big.

Compare us and you guys to Wakey today or Salford and it’s chalk and cheese. It’s not fair on any of the sides. It all comes back to money but we need to start going for quality over quantity.

100% don't agree.

You get very few benefits for being a club that invests in its academy, so why take it away and punish the clubs that do it right?

This afternoon was a pleasure, as are most Easter Monday games.

I can see that side but let’s not kid ourselves that today really does us any favours in the grand scheme of things. It’s two points and a bagful of points against a lesser side but it’s put a lot of fatigue on players doubling up and we may pay for that next week. We really need to get our heads around the fact that less is more. I want to watch games like the first 30 mins of the Good Friday game but for 80 mins and more often then once or twice a season. We won’t get there by flogging the players to breaking point.

Agreed, the toll the game takes on players these days should dictate a minimum rest period between games, should be 5 full days imo.

I'd hardly call today breaking point. French did 40, Field was brought off early. Peet got to give Mago even more mins (instead of extras after the game) and Halsall got a full game.

How about they just increase the cap and let teams build bigger squads & employ more lads as pro RL players? There's probably going to be some tough decisions at Wigan (from if we want to be a success POV) about a few lads we've nurtured, invested serious money in brought through. Who says that has to be that way tho? Why does the club have to pick between letting Partington, or Shorrocks leave & signing another another player? Why can't we have all three & a even stronger squad/reserve squad? Is it not just good planning from the club to find these guys young? Would more people go watching the reserves (more money for Wigan) if better/more experienced lads played?

Not a single player should be asked to play 2 games in 4 days IMO, (with just 2 full days rest in between)so unless you’re running a squad of at least 34 full time pros and you can somehow avoid any injuries going in to the second game you’re going to be asking that if some. Add in the fact you’ll also need find a way of keeping 34 full time pros happy throughout the year and that fans probably won’t want to watch reserve teams and it makes it impossible.

This is solely about it being unfair on the smaller clubs, in fact it just plays a small part. The main issue is that it isn’t right for any of the players, at any of the clubs. I doubt some of our players (especially lads in the middle) woke up on Saturday feeling much better then a pro boxer does after a 12 rounder and they’re then asked to go again on Monday. A pro boxer probably gets at the very least 2 or 3 months off and in some cases it’s 6-9 months.

Double post

Have to agree it’s time to bin the Easter Monday games - the quality is usually pretty terrible and the risk for players needing to play with knocks is pretty high.

keep them for me

Bin the extra Easter Monday game and just spread the round of fixtures out over the weekend, including Monday, like they do in the NRL.

i jumped a few pages, but back there talking about Saints and how/why they are successful: if getting your outside backs to take up the metres coming out of defence is such a great idea when Saints do it, why was it met with a barrage of complaints when Shaun Wane did it?

I await for replies on this with Baited breathe

Our kick return with Richards/Gleeson/Carmont/Goulding were a massive part of Maguires armoury and something that Brown had brought in as well at Hudds with Mcgillvary etc. That led to a lot of their success.
Charnley/ Davies/Gelling/Gildart/Sarginson/Manfredi/Thornley and also Marshall when he matured/bulked up carried that on was a massive part of what we did in 13 Through to 18 under Wane

It's something we stopped doing well last 3 years in the name of "More attractive" Rugby.
I think Peet was hoping with Thornley/Hardaker/Bibby/KPP/Marshall to replicate some of that with the X factor of field and French.