Scoring more points than the opposition and having the leading attack in the league?

So they aren't planning and practising counter moves for this season?

Most of the fans would leave through boredom. What is the point of having a team that gets to the top (which we have been on plenty of occasions in SL anyway) but which has no fans to follow it?

Give me free-flowing, pacy rugby league any day. I don't mind us surrendering the league leaders shield every now and again if it means I get to see some entrancing rugby league from Saints.

Alas. This season it looks like neither will happen! Either we play some brilliant stuff or we play such garbage it makes me want to cry. And under Potter/whoever is the conditioner, we seem incapable of keeping 13 fit men on the pitch for longer than half a match.

That would require Potter to be clued in. I'm not at all sure that he is.

We're gonna slaughter you lot tomorrow.

Wigan have played some of the best attacking rugby in the competition, whilst stopping other teams doing so defensively. Entertaining rugby has to be earned not gifted.

I don't disagree with what you are saying regarding the 'held' rule, but in my opinion it will always remain a potential minefield because of the subjectivity involved. It is easy to identify when a tackle is complete when the ball carrying arm hits the ground, not so much when both attacker and defender remains upright and forward progress remains in ebb and flow. The only potential rule change I can see is to look into calling held at the point that the third defender becomes involved, but there are potential attacking consequences in circumstances such as half breaks, tackle busts and where players have arms free for the offload. Unfortunately the more interpretations that you force officials to make, the more they will inevitably get it wrong.

The real solution is for coaches to ensure that their attacking players have the appropriate technique to ensure they have the leverage in the tackle to negate gang tacking or off the floor wrestling. Who'd have thought the team with superior technique in certain facets of the game would be the likely winner? Unfortunately limited coaches will always seek to whinge and moan about the unfairness of it all, rather than put the hard work in or admit their failings.

Alas.

Statistically Wigan may have played some of the best attacking rugby in the competition. But playing attacking rugby and entertaining rugby can be too different things, as is the case with Wigan this season.

Well one whingeing, moaning limited coach (Bluey) has knocked Wigan out of the cup with a weakened team, won back to back titles and nilled Australia in a Tri-Nations final.

When MM achieves something, you can legitimately bang on about limited coaches. As it stands, a lot of coaches in SL have achieved far more than MM has.

Suppose that entertaining rugby is the sole domain of 'The Entertainers[size=50TM[/size'?



Wigan have been plenty entertaining in attack thank you very much.

More entertaining than the give it to KFC/Roby/Graham ten yards out guff "the entertainers" play.

Seem to remember it was Hetherington doing the whingeing not Bluey and classing Leeds as a weakened side on home turf is a stretch, when they had no more first teamers missing than Wigan. As you well know any team can lose a one-off in the cup, the very same 3 times SL winners that you speak of were knocked out in the cup at a similar stage in those seasons, but still beat your 3 times runner ups when it mattered.

Anyway, the facts speak for themselves this season - Potter has been found out as a limited coach (and not just against Wigan), as have the other whingers in the form of Matterson, Kear, Brown et al.

As for MM not having achieved anything - touche - but I think he is doing pretty well in his first season to have largely the same team that finished 6th last year under a three time GF winning coach, now in first. Most fair minded fans would suggest that he has exceeded expectations and should be given a fair bit more time to mould his own team / squad regardless of the eventual results this year.

Well well has Mr Potter finally said something, tell him to ring Mr Kear they can have a good chat together whilst the paint dries, and tell his own players to stop continually moaning at the ref when things are not going right, and tell his prop to stop leading with the forearm and knee.
I detect a bit of pre match nerves.

And as opposed to the scoot-a-thon against unset defences to create broken play that we endured for the best part of the last decade. SL (not just Wigan) is starting to see a bit more variation, skill and invention to break down defences, rather than the one trick tactic that failed us so badly when completely negated at international level by superior defensive technique.

Wigan scoot more from dummy half than any other team - FACT.

Show me the part of my post where I said they didn't? Proves it can still be done if you aren't dominated in the tackle.



I'd still be surprised if it were anywhere near a couple of years ago though and its the same tactic as most Saints fans refer to as 'entertaining'. Or are there now different rules for Wigan and Saints in that regard?

Actually, that'd be Catalans.

He's taken Catalans and Saints to cup finals. Check out Catalans this season compared to Potter's team.

MM the wonder coach beat Potter the loser on penalty kicks this season at KR, hardly conclusive proof of anything, especially with Wilkin in the halves. Tomorrow will prove nothing either given we have at least 5 internationals out, but when Leeds and Saints have a half decent team back come play-off time it's adios Wigan . . . just like the challenge cup (even though Leeds were missing a few internationals then too).

I'm a week out of date - I've a feeling you might run 8 times tomorrow to retain top spot

Nope. We haven't been very entertaining since about halfway through Potter's first season. Against Leeds this season we were. And Hull KR twice, although that was more to do with Hull KR giving us free reign to play. I did enjoy watching us play though. It had been quite a while!

Wire play entertaining RL and so do Cas (although not to good effect this season). I saw glimmers of entertaining rugby in Crusaders when they played against Bradford. I would say England RL were entertaining at times against France. For example, Sam Tomkins - who seemed to pop right out of his shell at Leigh - kicking through only for his brother to repeat the move with a try for Sam at the end: that's entertaining rugby. Entertaining rugby is a style.

Being entertained by a match of rugby league isn't the same thing. There can be many reasons for finding a match entertaining.

Wasn't that Widdop not his brother?

There's a difference between a limited coach and an absolute clueless buffoon - Potter is the former and Walters is the latter. Catalans to the cup final granted was an achievement, Saints to a final with Anderson's team wasn't. Bit unfair to employ the same marker against MM, since he hasn't even completed a full season and therefore hasn't the same opportunities. Nevertheless it could be said that second is the first loser, getting to a final itself shouldn't necessarily be classed as success in my book - we went to a few finals in the early 2000s, but aside from April 2002, none were what I would consider a success.


Played the conditions in a game against a team and at a venue which Wigan had a horrendous recent record - a success in anyones book. The relative positions in the table is the conclusive proof regardless for the time being.

I'm glad to see you are getting your excuses in early - it makes a refreshing change from the arrogance and gloating that we have had to endure in recent times.



As for injuries and one off results - I give you; Friday 18th April 2003, as an example of how form goes out of the window in derbies. Regardless of how well we appear to be going, I will never be dismissive of Saints chances in a derby.

Was it? I thought it was Joel? Widdop would make more sense though. Either way, it was an entertaining piece of rugby!

And for a Saints fan, anything Wigan do is automatically excluded?



By the way for such an exciting brand of rugby, as of last week Warrington had made the enormous margin of 2 extra clean breaks than Wigan.