Are you not forgetting the best player in superleague so far in the machine that is James Roby.

So you're pinning your hopes on James Roby? He can't work behind a beaten pack. I expect his performances to drop considerably if you fail to replace James Graham and Tony Puletua with any considerable top quality forwards.

Dear Saintsfan .... I know we are from Wigan and therefore a bit slow to take things on board ... but I think we understand by now that you had a young team out, that our first try was from a forward pass and that Hoffman should be banned for the rest of the season. Afterall your fellow fans have been on this site making excuses for the past four or five hours.

And you take Richards and Tomkins out of the wigan team and they are mid table at best

Most of the players mentioned as missing having been part of the perennial runners up. What part of taking full strength sides at the business end of the season, do you not understand? The comment wasn't about today, which in the grand scheme of things means absolutely nothing, regardless of Saints gallant performance in defeat. Just to emphasise the point, a team of youngsters played in a team decimated by injuries and actually beat a pretty much full strength Saints side on Good Friday in 2003 against all odds. They were lauded as a golden generation at the time, but nothing came of it and only one of those players remained part of the squad that won the GF in 2010 (O'Loughlin) and he remains the only player to have won a trophy of the 17 in the period since. Thats why I take the Saints hyperbole about youngsters in a one-off game with a pinch of salt - there's only Lomax out of the new lot that I have any envy about (Graham and Roby otherwise) and I'd take our collection of home grown talent in the team and squad every time moving forward.

Swap Richards, Tomkins and Wigan for Graham, Roby and St. Helens and you have the same sentence. Every team has its good players that they rely on and their squad fillers.

Quote ="SaintsFan"Actually, the Saints youngsters you saw today by and large were in the academy side who beat Wigan in the Academy grand final a few years back - I think it was 2008? Foster, Magennis, Lomax, Ashurst (who all played tonight) as well as Dixon (played in the GF last season), were all promoted from the Academy to the first team when they were 18. For the two years under Potter they all got a lot of game time because from about the second half of the first season under Potter we began to have really serious injury issues. Wheeler and Eastmond were in the previous cohort and both played in Academy teams that beat the Aussies in their own back yard. '" 2008: wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=636 2009: wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=759 2010: wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=936 You might see some familiar names in the losing Saints teams that strangely match most of those in your post Quote We only pick the best of our u20s lads for first team action. We may not beat you in u20s grand finals, but that doesn't mean we don't have very talented young players in those sides. Most of them, though, will be average and possibly go on to other things. IMO it is far more important to extract the really talented ones and promote them to the first team than to win u20s GFs. '" It's probably important that the Senior team also manage to win the GF? I wonder which group of youngsters from those three academy seasons have already done that Quote Given that you are the reigning champions and had only two of your players missing, as Wigan fans you must be very worried that you could only beat such a young Saints side by the score of a try obtained from a forward pass that even your coach recognised as such. But us Saints fans are delighted by what we saw. And to think, Makinson is only 19 and that is only the third time he has played in a first grade match, and he has yet to play a full match at this level. In terms of talent and commitment, these are very, very encouraging times for us.'" Whatever makes you happy.

Quote ="SaintsFan"Actually, the Saints youngsters you saw today by and large were in the academy side who beat Wigan in the Academy grand final a few years back - I think it was 2008? Foster, Magennis, Lomax, Ashurst (who all played tonight) as well as Dixon (played in the GF last season), were all promoted from the Academy to the first team when they were 18. For the two years under Potter they all got a lot of game time because from about the second half of the first season under Potter we began to have really serious injury issues. Wheeler and Eastmond were in the previous cohort and both played in Academy teams that beat the Aussies in their own back yard. '" 2008: wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=636 2009: wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=759 2010: wigan.rlfans.com/news.php?readmore=936 You might see some familiar names in the losing Saints teams that strangely match most of those in your post Quote We only pick the best of our u20s lads for first team action. We may not beat you in u20s grand finals, but that doesn't mean we don't have very talented young players in those sides. Most of them, though, will be average and possibly go on to other things. IMO it is far more important to extract the really talented ones and promote them to the first team than to win u20s GFs. '" It's probably important that the Senior team also manage to win the GF? I wonder which group of youngsters from those three academy seasons have already done that Quote Given that you are the reigning champions and had only two of your players missing, as Wigan fans you must be very worried that you could only beat such a young Saints side by the score of a try obtained from a forward pass that even your coach recognised as such. But us Saints fans are delighted by what we saw. And to think, Makinson is only 19 and that is only the third time he has played in a first grade match, and he has yet to play a full match at this level. In terms of talent and commitment, these are very, very encouraging times for us.'" Whatever makes you happy.

Well played wigan.

We have broke many a heart in the last minute, was about time it happened to us

42-12?? That's an awful lot of forward passes that!

And three of those you mention won't be about next season either to add to Graham and Puletua. Grand finals aren't won in April, but win our game in hand and we're joint top without playing well at all yet apart from one game at Bradford and a backs to the wall win at Huddersfield.

Still plenty more to come.

Including Fielden, Hock and O'Carroll to boost the pack.

I love this bravado after a tough defeat. The losers always rush online to tell you how they're not too bothered. "They did us proud. We had the moral victory, etc". The reality - i.e. for those who were actually there - was somewhat different. Walking back into Wigan alongside shed-loads of St Helens fans, I didn't see one of them who didn't look too bothered.

10 out of 10 for putting a brave face on it. But the reality is that Wigan have had all sorts of disruption in the last few weeks, and subsequently have been well under par. Saints youngsters played well, I'll give you guys that. Despite Wigan's problems, it was still a big effort to run us that close. But ultimately it was a wasted effort. Futile bravery is still futile, and looking towards the future is entirely the realm of the those who are failing in the present - especially when, as others have said, the sinews of your war machine may not even be there this time next year.

Funny how you describe looking towards the future as such now. For the last few years all's you have told us is wait for a few years when our senior players go!

I thought Foster faking injury on 76mins was very unprofessional, did you see that? or the forward pass to Meli in Cardiff, what goes around comes around.

If Saints lose both Graham and Puletua I will guarantee you a Star signing will be arriving for next season.

It's funny how one minute Graham is crap he then signs for the Bulldogs and Wigan fans announce were losing the best prop in SL.

With the production line that we have and the signingd were willing to make. Saints will be in with a shout of trophies for many years yet.

It was a bloody good game. The game last year at the DW was the game of 2010. That will not be far off this year.

As for us Saints getting used to it... erm no

I didn't say Wigan fans were immune from it.

But let's not have people pretending they weren't bothered about losing yesterday. The Saints team was and so were all the Saints fans I saw on the way home. Two points lost is still two points lost, however brave the manner of defeat.

That would be disappointment at losing that you saw. But no-one would have been disappointed at the effort our players put in or at the realisation that for all Wigan are last year's champions, you had to rely upon a try from a forward pass and a literal last minute piece of footwork to win the match against a patched up side that lost two crucial players in the first half.

I know that if I was a Wigan fan just now while I would be delighted to get the win, I would be concerned that Wigan hadn't taken Saints apart under those circumstances.

You don't look like champions; you haven't looked like champions all season. We don't look like champions either but from a Saints' fan's POV, we are doing 100% better than we thought we would, even without half our first team playing. And we are playing the style of rugby league that all Saints fans long to see.

A win would have been great, and would have been deserved. We didn't get that. We were, and still are, disappointed. But whereas you can look at a team that hasn't come anywhere close to the form of last season so far, we can look at a team that - if it can only be kept on the park long enough - could beat anyone out there and in a style that has any Saints fan grinning with happiness. Our hope for the future is not about next season; it's about this season. We can see what we have in our team, how good it is. Our fear is that the team will never be fit enough to see that potential through this season.

See Webb at Leeds, not sure I have seen him make a legal pass in any TV game I have seen.

Lets not forget that the Wigan team are only just starting to get some kind of consistent shape with players in and out from injury etc.

Watched it on Sky + and frame frame by frame it was a line ball and not a mile forward like the SKY commentators are baying about and the touchjudge was in line with play.

You can analyse the game and said that was forward .But if you want start being petty how can deacon knock on with his head ,Charnley tackled a player but hit the ball out the saints hand which he knew nothing about as you can see on the replay he simply went for the tackle and he would of been away yet that got deemed a knock on . You get decision go for and against all season you can only play to whistle FFS

There was also a moment where a saints player knocked the ball from a wigan players hand and that should have been a knock on against saints but instead you got the scrum. So if we want to go on about dubious decisions I can guarantee that if they weren't level then they were on saints favour. Especially the offsides!

Although I disagree, the point is irrelevant whether it were true or not. Neither player is set to leave Wigan unlike Tony Puletua and James Graham.