Fair play to Saints, very enthused. As I thought we'd struggle to break them down. Turning point for me was after Charnley's first try off the kick off.

Great few carries by Dudson, Flower and Doran, rolling forward and Smith puts in an AWFUL sliced kick.

Still pretty confident we'll get Saints when we need to. Especially if we get some bodies back.

Team tonight vs My playoff team

Bowen Bowen
Charnley Charnley
Gelling Goulding
Sarginson Gelling
Burgess Burgess
Powell Green
Smith Smith
Dudson Taylor
Williams McIlorum
Flower Flower
Bateman Bateman
Hughes Farrell
O'Loughlin O'Loughlin

James Clubb
Crosby Pettybourne
Taylor Joel Tomkins
Doran Powell

Loads of improvement in that team. Game-breaking ability in Green and Farrell.

We have that team out come September we'll be there or there abouts.

Spot on, nothing to be too too concerned about tonight but we do need fully fit players on the pitch soon.

We do have to get those players back though. As soon as one returns we seem to get another injured. If we continue to go into games with 7-8 missing from our best 17 then we won't win the big games.
Get them back and we are good enough to beat anyone.
Agree with the selection above broadly, I'd have Crosby in preference to Pettybourne.
As for the game. Second half I thought Wigan were running on empty. At 8-16 it looked to me as if Saints would add another couple of trys and have a convincing score. That it ended three trys each with the game won on goals says a lot about our ability to hang in and Saints inability to finish us off.
With all their domination of the game they should have scored far more trys than Wigan.

The turning point was the penalty for lifting. No penalty. No try.



I agree except for Thornley who I'd still have over Gelling. but they have to be up to speed and match fit.

Not for the playoffs but tonight I thought Doran did well for his short stint. In fact I think we would have been better leaving him on.

So... If you played one up rugby how is that not part of your structure during the game? I'm confused...

Or.....on another day the opposition doesn't get slapped 11-5 in the penalty count, including 5 in last 12 minutes. Or.....on another day Wello is adjudged not to have grounded ball behind goal line giving Wigan a drop out which led to a try, or.....on another day the ref hears the touch Judge shout forward pass? Or....even on another day the touch judge sees that the Percival conversion sails through the posts & doesn't wave it away?

It’s not the end of the world and we’ll bounce back I’m sure; after the embarrassing mauling the Cats gave em they needed something to placate their shrinking egos. As for us if we could have matched them on goal kicking I would have been a little happier!

As a neutral is was a great game to watch. From what I can remember there were a coupe of penalties which changed the momentum towards saints at a key point and it went from you nearly scoring to saints scoring. You nearly/should have gone in on that double movement 4 mins from the end. Really good game though and good atmosphere as well.

I wonder if Albions read this?
He would have to edit his post earlier and say now he's never read as much bollox in his life!

My particular favourite being Wello being adjudged not to have grounded the ball etc.
The reason he was is because he did and I'm not sure how in any circumstance anyone wouldn't be able to see that?

They changed the ruling last season im afraid. If he gets up & moves back over line without being tackled behind it, its play on. Do keep up.

If they did I apologise, the rest still stands.

So we haven't scored more points than anybody else (except Leeds) so far this season?

So you thought before the season kicked off, with all the loss in personnel, that we would be in such a good position?

So even with the unprecidented injuries this year you think we should be in a better position?

Sorry pal but you need to be realistic. The season as a whole is going ok all things considered and on last night, we can improve! We were beaten by a team with a big point to prove after Easter and the Catalan mauling.

We move on.......

Very disappointing to lose, and i hate losing to stains. But we have lost to the team who have gone top, so despite all their whining they can't be that bad, can they. We did look very predictable, but as some stains have been acknowledging, you know what we are going to do, but it's still hard to stop. You could use Beckham as an example of something similar, you knew he would make half a yard then cross, but was hard to stop. MM's control, and Greens guile were missing of course, but i thought that the young lads, stood up well. Young Doran looked very much at home, and his passing was crisp and accurate.

So, disappointed, but certainly not downhearted.

He was tackled though

I dont think we were particulalry bad as such but just defended poorly on our own line at times and didnt execute in attack. I thought we dominated and controlled much of the 1st half and should have led at half time. Saints did well though to weather out the first 30mins or so especially with Walsh going off and were the best team in the 2nd half.

I'm in no way blaming this moment on the result, but some people call Sarginsons defence bad. Which at centre can be true. But the missed tackles from Burgess and Bowen were awful which allowed Makinson to score. He should have been straight into touch and Im still in shock that they both managed to fall off the tackle.

Overall I thought we played ok and won't be too worried. Saints' defence was good and in the end they deserved it as we gave away two stupid penalties at silly times which basically handed them the game. In the end it came down to two kicks being the difference.

I dont think Sarginsons defence was half as bad last night as I have heard some make out. My main gripe is in attack, he doesnt even look to pass and he just hasnt got the instinct to play centre and it shows. I actually thought Gelling's defence was worse last night and it was only because Smith kept saving him that he got away with it. Smith himself isnt normally the best defender but he made some cracking tackles last night and one was very Leuluai like.

I don't want to turn this into a 'ref fest' but the penalty count isn't the only decisions that a ref gives. The 2 back to back knock on decisions he got wrong for example helped Saints enormously at that time. As for the penalties; you pointed out yourself that up until the last 12 mins when Saints were desperately hanging on that it was pretty even. Are you saying any of those last five pens were wrong decisions?

It was a close game only decided by kicks. We could have won it after the hooter on the very last play of the game. That's the sort of match we should have every week. I think it'll be interesting the next time the two teams meet!

When a game is that close I think every error/lapse in judgement is amplified especially against Saints. With that being said I don't think we were out enthused or poor in defense or attack Saints were just a little bit better on the day. It was a couple of errors by players who otherwise played brilliantly that may have swung momentum, Smiths kick after that phenomenal running by our pack for example or that mistimed pass that hit Flower and lead to a knock on, in the end it's these moments that decide close physical games.

Obviously I saw lots of things the ref didn't but that is always going to be the case due to the shameful bias I have for Wigan

I have no doubt Saints fans feel the same way.

I do think we have a few players in there I don't think have nailed down what their positions should be. This isn't such a bad thing considering the age of the squad and in time they will improve but Gelling as brilliant as he was didn't create space for Charnley. Same could be said for Sarge, I love his running style and if he was doing it from FB I think people would be singing his praises but a needs to be a bit more direct imo. I am being overly critical here though as both had solid games (perhaps I'm just trying to find areas to improve)

As for having players out, injuries no excuses whatsoever (this is rugby ffs) but I'm proud to be a Wigan supporter as we promote talent from our home town and lead the way in this regard. To complain about injuries is to do a disservice to these kids who put their body on the line.

Overall a very positive performance and I won't panic if we come up against Saints later in the season, I have no doubt it will be a close game but I think we have the talent to win it.

Wel im not sure which game a few of you watched but I though the game was lost when our props lost their heads. A Dudson penalty and a Ben Flower swinging arm cost us 8 points in short succession. You just cant afford to give away these silly penalties in BIG GAMES! Matty Smith who I thought really stepped up from a poor performance against Wakey and was probably our best player Friday apart from his kicking that also let us down and would have won us the game. I lot of people have jumped on Jack Hughes a the scapegoat for Friday I think your totally wrong there he made one error all game but it didn't cost us the game. Call a spade a spade people and less Kop Outs please!

For OP: wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=2657 wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=1147

For OP: wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=2657 wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=1147

Saints won 12-16 with three trys each plus two goals to Saints.
The difference in the scoreline are the two goals.
Just read in the trade press how super duper fantastic Saints were and we were well behind. Saints were good, for them, and the better team won. Whether they can repeat those kind of performances for the rest of the season remains to be seen.
However as far as Wigan are concerned, we had seven players out of our best 17 missing. Once we have Goulding, Thornley, Green, McIlorum, Farrell, Clubb and Pettybourne back we will have a far stronger squad than played last Friday. Add to that Joel Tomkins who will return at the end of the month and it looks a very strong squad indeed. If we can get those players back and match fit plus stem the injuries there's every hope for a good end to the season.

Ignoring any players missing (their loss of Walsh early on evened things out a bit) I think more of a factor on the night was players playing who were not fit.

Players will always play carrying knocks but there were Wigan players who were visibly not right.
Lockers, Powell, Charnley, Gelling & Bateman were nowhere near 100% imo. I didn't think the game was as good as is being made out, the quality from both teams was poor at times. We can play a lot better but I don't think that was Saints best either.

Oh and the main 'predictable' thing for me was losing another 'big game' at the DW.

On the plus side I thought that young Doran deserved some credit. He didn't look out of place, passed well and made the defence think a bit. I am not sure where he will end up because we have a glut of good stand offs but at 100kg and good ball handling skills he could do a job in any number of roles, once he loses the puppy fat.