I understand your thinking but you have to realise that the regular season is already over halfway through and both teams have so far played each other once and could expect to play each other at least another 2 or 3 times after Thursday evenings second encounter.
Last season Wire played Hull home and away within a week, work that one out!

It's hard to work out.

It's a real shame that both these games haven't been planned well at all. To have the first one just after Easter and the second a few weeks later in a Thursday has taken plenty away from what should have been two belters in front of huge crowds.

As you say there could be another couple of fixtures yet so hopefully they'll be planned better.

Agreed
Consideration ought to be applied to this fixture.
I'm fully awhere of the echoes that Sts v Wigan is the biggest derby, well I would argue that except for the recent dip in Wire form over the last 2 seasons the W v W fixture has been the more meaningful derby in recent times, as it is once again tomorrow.

I hate Thursday games with a passion but IF they have to be played they should only be reserved for teams that have not too much distance bewteen them, otherwise you are looking at very poor attendances, something our sport can't afford before someone tells me football do it with no problem.

I think you got them mixed up just looked at last weeks stats for that game:

Burke - 82 Metres - Average Gain - 7.45
Wells - 32 Metres - Average Gain - 4.57

Burke performed as our 3rd best prop in that game on metres and average gain.

Top of the props for me last week was Lee Mossop by a mile he really impressed me and is starting to look like the Lee Mossop that left for OZ.

Fair enough. Quite surprised at those stats to be honest. Still maintain what I said about Burke though. And agree on Mossop!

regardless of the stats, i just thought that wells looked a good prospect (certainly once he fills out), and on that basis, with his time on the field likely to be minimal, it would be good to see more of him than burke, who offers little other than a solid, if unspectacular 15 min stint.
on the williams question; to me defence is key. i would rather start him, as gregson was badly exposed last week. i would prefer him to come on at 9 or 12 rather than 6, where he may be more comfortable (and hes always an option for 6 if george pulls up).

Great impact from Burke off the bench! Not.

How do we let that ugly old thug score with 4 men on him? Shocking.

Line speed is very poor when we don't have one of O'Loughlin, Clubb or McIlorum on the field.

Tautai 16-4 Wigan

What does Tautai actually do other than give penalties away and lose the ball? He's gash!

Where's Joe Cobb tonight

Wane just needs to tell him, run straight and stop running stupid angles and tackle low, around the ankles if you need to. Complete liability today, he changed the game in Wire's favour. Reminds me of when Lauaki lost us a game a few seasons ago.

truly shocking performance....how many missed tackles, props not getting back to do their job and get this team moving forward, forwards running sideways, our PTB is pedestrian at best....this has nothing to do with injuries....this a poor performance

Pretty depressing listening to this on Wish. It's not often I think, I'm glad I'm not there, but tonight...

even more depressing watching it trust me. we are truly awful.

We are bad, really bad. It's not even like we are playing some good stuff and it's just not our night, we are playing predictable, boring one man rugby and still making mistakes.

Back home in lovely Leigh, where he lives....

Tautai has been terrible, there's no doubt about that. A combination of penalties, mistakes and poor defence has cost us a lot of points. Credit where it's due, Wire have defended very well and taken their chances. Their kicking game has been excellent.

18 missed tackles from us in the first half is not good enough, the distribution from dummy half has been poor too, I think we are missing MM for more than just tough defence. I don't want to be too harsh and will wait until we have something resembling a full strength side out before I judge.

Not often I turn a game off before the end but I've seen enough, I didn't expect to win by any means but having injuries is no excuse for some of the defence we have seen tonight. I've praised Tautai all season but him entering the field was the big turning point, He became a liability with all those penalties and as a result our energy just completely went.

Williams showed a few bits of good play but he had no one in support to finish it off. Poor show all round really. Other than Clubb and Bateman I'm not sure I can give anyone any praise at all.

I know everyone's a bit emotional after a big loss, but this is just boll*cks.

Atrocious performance. Are we blaming injuries this time rather than a virus then?

Your the one full of Boll0cks lad..defending this...cluesless muppet..

No, it isnt