Our defence doesn’t worry me in the slightest tbh. I’ll go all Saints fan here and say we’ve been disrupted and we’re constantly shuffling things around, especially in the spine positions, with bans for huge defenders for us like Powell and Smithies and that’s not helping but it’s mainly just a concentration issue IMO. In the knock out games this season in the cup we conceded 0,6,18 and 14, so never over 20 points and an average 9.5 points per game (plus one of Saints try’s was offside

).

All teams have that group of fans who have those types of opinion, especially when successful and their fan base grows with glory hunters that think they have a divine right to win every game. You know the sort, the referee never gives them a single penalty/decision and everyone is against them. Typical of what we're reading from Saints fans currently, but like I say it comes off the back of the success they've had. They won't point to a poor level of competition in 2019, luck in 2020 and a few decisions/covid tactics in 2021 - they will simply say they're the greatest side in the history of the game.

I hope we're hearing all the excuses again on Saturday night.

Plus Tommy.

Indeed. Tommy, Smithies and Powell could well be our best 3 defenders and then you’ve had the centres changing constantly and Field and French moving between full back and stand off or wing and fullback. Even so we should’ve defended better at times but when the time is right and the big games come around, I’m confident we’ll be switched on and ready.

And I presume when Wigan won all those leagues in the 80s that the competition was higher than ever? Everyone else was spending £400k on wingers like Offiah...

Funny that since the salary cap has been in existence, Wigan's leagues have dried up somewhat.

What an awful lucky team we are. Should probably strip us of our last 3 titles to be fair based on your statement.

Squads named. No Percival or Makinson for Saints, so if we can give them a game upfront we’ll be a chance. Cust back for us but I’d probably use him from the bench.

I’d go-

French
Miski Bibby Pearce-Paul Marshall
Field Smith
Singleton Powell Ellis
Bateman Farrell Smithies

Subs
Byrne Havard
Mago Cust

Looking forward to the weekend.

Makinson is out for 3-5 weeks so not sure why you seem surprised he's not playing.

Quote ="Stu M"icon_lol.gif And I presume when Wigan won all those leagues in the 80s that the competition was higher than ever? Everyone else was spending £400k on wingers like Offiah... Funny that since the salary cap has been in existence, Wigan's leagues have dried up somewhat. What an awful lucky team we are. Should probably strip us of our last 3 titles to be fair based on your statement.'" Wigan didn't sign Martin Offiah in the 1980's, but we did have Mark Preston and Jason Robinson coming through. Watch the Leeds v Saints cup tie in 1992 and see all those Saints part time players!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... l=Andy1adL

Quote ="Stu M"icon_lol.gif And I presume when Wigan won all those leagues in the 80s that the competition was higher than ever? Everyone else was spending £400k on wingers like Offiah... Funny that since the salary cap has been in existence, Wigan's leagues have dried up somewhat. What an awful lucky team we are. Should probably strip us of our last 3 titles to be fair based on your statement.'" Wigan didn't sign Martin Offiah in the 1980's, but we did have Mark Preston and Jason Robinson coming through. Watch the Leeds v Saints cup tie in 1992 and see all those Saints part time players!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... l=Andy1adL

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Wigan didn't sign Martin Offiah in the 1980's, but we did have Mark Preston and Jason Robinson coming through. Watch the Leeds v Saints cup tie in 1992 and see all those Saints part time players!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... l=Andy1adL'" Don’t quote facts to the man. It doesn’t fit with the agenda

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Wigan didn't sign Martin Offiah in the 1980's, but we did have Mark Preston and Jason Robinson coming through. Watch the Leeds v Saints cup tie in 1992 and see all those Saints part time players!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... l=Andy1adL'" Don’t quote facts to the man. It doesn’t fit with the agenda

Where have I noted my surprise? Simply pointing it out as being confirmed now for anybody not aware.

Saints are extremely honest, lead by the honest as the day is long Mr Woolf, so I never expected any game playing

I rest my case your honour.

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Wigan didn't sign Martin Offiah in the 1980's, but we did have Mark Preston and Jason Robinson coming through. Watch the Leeds v Saints cup tie in 1992 and see all those Saints part time players!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... l=Andy1adL'" Not to mention winning the league by 1 point, 2 points and on PD a number of times. History seems to have been re-written and we won the league by 30 and 40 points a season.

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Wigan didn't sign Martin Offiah in the 1980's, but we did have Mark Preston and Jason Robinson coming through. Watch the Leeds v Saints cup tie in 1992 and see all those Saints part time players!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... l=Andy1adL'" Not to mention winning the league by 1 point, 2 points and on PD a number of times. History seems to have been re-written and we won the league by 30 and 40 points a season.

Stu is one of the good Saints fans, always up for a discussion, never nasty or petty, just misinformed.

So St Helens only won back to back to back titles and a challenge cup due to luck? Lmao ok.

Could you get any more bitter lol

I mean, Welsby couldn't have been much luckier that night...

Would be great to get the win to stay ahead in the top 2 race and maybe to give ourselves a chance of the shield. I know it's a minor trophy but when there are only 3 you can win why not get invested in all of them? Not happy that Catalans have a clear advantage here in playing a team running 10th in the table when we play the team that is top (Saints could feel equally aggrieved). The imbalances in the fixture list really aren't great.

I feel a bit cautious about this one though - in reality we've had one game where we got the better of them and they definitely werent on form that day. We're playing well but our last three fixtures have been against bottom 4 teams and we could have defended better last week. One thing we really want to avoid over everything else is taking a step backwards. On Good Friday we were beaten comprehensively in the end and the two games in 2021 were non contests. Hopefully its a very competitive game at least which can give us more reason to believe we're in with a chance at the end of the year and in 2023/beyond.

Not what I said, but again......thanks for proving the point.

I'll put it into basic English:

Fans of winning teams will never say anything apart from they're the best and they always win because they deserve to and that every other team and player is crap. Fans of other clubs will point out perceivee poor decisions that went their way, bits of luck etc etc to make it look like their success is flawed. Wigan being full time for the whole period of our dominance for example.

All fans of successful clubs therefore come across as arrogant, especially those that have only ever seen the success because they jumped on the glory bus.

As Saints are currently the successful club, their fans are coming across as arrogant. Leeds fans did 2007-2009 and no doubt we have done in the past.

Sky Sports are showing the Wigan -Saints game scheduled to start at 6.00pm on Main Event. Obviously not correct, anyone else noticed this?

That's just highlights. The full game is on Sky Sports Mix.

Biggest game in the sport and shoved to Sky Sports Mix.

Don't understand having us on before Leeds and Cas. Big crowd at 4.30, everyone gone home for 6.00

Agreed re: the scheduling - very disappointing to be on SSM.

Even looking at it from last season's performances - it's Wigan v Saints. It will always be your biggest crowd puller even it's a walkover. There's a reason literally one game between us in 30 years hasn't been on TV.

So what have i learned this week? Well it's more of a regurgitation than a lesson but going through the Wigan and Saints forums :-

We can't win unless we play our best
We can't win unless Saints play their worst
We can only win if we attack their right edge
They are 'vastly' superior
They were robbed against us because Smithies should have been sent off, and robbed in Catalans last week
They have an 'Uber' defence
Players being injured is affecting their continuity
Over the last 2 years only Penrith have conceded 1 more point than them on average (Nice one Yellow Giraffe) Penrith don't play Wakefield though do they. Pity Saints bottled their offer of a match so we could see how similar it is.
Field is a one trick pony yada yada yada

So if Saints turn up and we still play our best and they aren't robbed and their Penrith like defence stops us they are going to put a 'big score' on us

Ah well, i wanted to watch the tennis anyway. Might aswel stay in if it's going to be an NRL style walkover.

Very clever to take things out of context to try and be a comedian.

My comment, which is factual by the way, was aimed at someone claiming our defence isn’t that special. I informed him that we concede an average of 11 points per game and was 10 last year. Only Penrith can better that out of all Super League and NRL teams. That’s a fact.

Not once did I say we have “Penrith like defence.” Nor did I mention putting a big score on anyone. Nor did anyone else. You’ve literally made that up about a NRL style walkover. The comment re the WCC game is ridiculous too as depending who you believe Saints made every attempt to arrange the game. But yeah we “bottled” it.

Been a weird week on here and I think you’ve summed it up nicely. Lots of bitchy, catty behaviour and comments. I get that it’s derby week but it’s been a very petty few days and your post is frankly pathetic. If you’re so short of attention go and find yourself a woman. Or whatever floats your boat.

It has been a strange week, I’ve given up posting to be honest. I’ve enjoyed the discussions on here in the main but not this week. Some ridiculous comments.

Not sure if the CC win has gone to their heads but suddenly we aren’t all that anymore. Moreover our 3 peat (which is a ridiculously brilliant achievement in a salary capped sport) has now only been achieved through luck, Covid and Woolf cheating.