Agree with Father Ted 100%.

The loss of those players, particularly Coley, was always going to make it difficult.

That said our run-in is probably tougher than Wire's (though Wire have the potential distraction of the CC), and we really do now need to bounce back with a win at Hull.

i think there have been a number of reasons why we have done so well this year. as already posted leeds and saints injurys problems have of course helped. I dont think we are burnt out.

most of all Madge has got the one thing out of this squad Noble never could, consistency. We were 90 mins away from old trafford, if we could get consistency it was never in doubt we were a top 4 side.

I think at the start of season our fitness was also way above anyone elses, and everyone has been playing catch up and has nearly caught up.

because of our lightweight front which as all ready pointed out was light going into the season an injury here or there puts it under considerble strain.

the other part of our game Nobby could never get going was our attack.

I have posted before we will not win the GF we dont have the experience of big game players like Saints, Leeds or Warrington but next year will be the year of the warrior

Well looking at this i do think we should win at Hull this week i watched there game last Thursday on TV and did not see anything for us to be worried about.

Week after its Leeds now this game is just a week before there CC semi are they going to risk all there top players that week or rest some for the week after? It could turn out to be an easy one for us.

Then a weeks rest and Huddersfield at home this is one were i think we could slip up.

Then we have Hull KR at there place this could be another banana skin depending on how there form is at that time.

Another Week off then Bradford at Home should win that one.
Will go for 8pts out of 10 possible points

Now short summery of Warringtons run in
Catalan will have a point to prove ant at home they can play well Les cats
Win
Saints at Home week before semi depends who wants to play a full side?
Wire win
Wakefield this depends on if Wire have beaten Catalan in the Semi they could be cock a hoop or depressed
Wire Win
Hull FC at home this is down to if they are in the CC final if they are then its Hull win which is what i will go for
Hull win
Quins next wire win

Thats 6pts out of 10pts available

Therefore i think we will finish top we might have a tougher run in on paper but the CC will come into play Leeds will want to get to the final and so will Warrington in which case Warrington will have 2 games they will not want to risk there top players getting hurt.

I can honestly see wire getting 8 points from their last 5 games with them just losing to saints and beating the rest.

We are not as good as we were at the beginning of the season that much is pretty obvious. It was quite a disappointing display from Wigan despite running Warrington close mainly because Warrington took about 25-30 minutes to get into gear and keep hold of the ball. That meant Wigan had half an hour of total domination, most of it spent in Warrington's half and we got one try. They had two attacks in our half in the last ten minutes and went in leading at half time.

I do wonder if Wigan had started in a similar fashion whether Warrington would have struggled to get more than six points on the board. For me our defence and attack are good but not great and that will be the key come the end of the season.

I still fancy us to finish top, still fancy us to have as good a shot as anyone at winning the GF. The defeats to Saints and Wire are disappointing and worrying but the key is in each game they HAD to win or the race was over. In each case, we knew we stayed top whatever the result. In the play-offs, when the stakes are the same for both sides, I think we will see a different performance. No guarantees of course, it's knock-out rugby and anything can happen. But I'm not writing us off just yet.

Friday is a huge game. We need to bounce back with a win. It is really important we do this in the context of our season.

Reminds me of something Noble would say

Under the circumstances, we didn't do too badly on Friday. Players getting knocks, no Coley, debatable 'No Try' decision, JT making a mess of a great scoring chance, outplayed up front... We lost by 7 points! Most teams would have had the cleaners put through them, a bit of luck and composure and it'd probably have been a different result.

No need to panic, we'll still get top spot

No that would have gone along the lines of :

That baby hasnt thrown the toys out the bath water, simply need to get back on the bike.

I have not seen the game due to being in Dublin on a stag since Friday, and without having seen it that performance cannot be included in my assessment but I have to say when I first heard about the flogging they were getting I was concerned that we may suffer burnout, but in truth I have seen no evidence of this at all up to date.

I think that mostly the burnout comes from the mid season training not the pre season, also playing with injuries is a massive contributor something that we have not done this year, it seems we are utilising the full squad, any player with a knock is not being used it seems.

I have faith that both MM and our conditioning team are allowing our players enough recovery time to compensate for the games and flogging they have in preseason,

Having two weeks off for upcoming Challenge Cup games will help us to combat any possible tiredness.

Yep, we can't go from bemoaning the lack of fitness to blaming it within a season. Thats just daft.

If we have peaked too soon we've time to recover from it which is good.

Win next two games though and the Wire match will quickly be forgotten. It all depends.

We should be able to peak 2 to 3 times a year. We may currently be in a bit of a non peak orientated training macro cycle due to the fact we are out of the cup.

In the original plan I am sure we would have looked to really hit the ground running and obviously at the business end of the season, I would also expect there would have been an allowance for the Challenge Cup latter stages, but the plan will have been fluid and shifted since our defeat to Leeds.

I don't think we have peaked too soon but Friday showed me we have not got the depth in certain positions we may have thought.

Losing Micky Mac results in a set of musical chairs when Riddell goes off Nobby would be proud of. We had three different full backs on Friday as well partly planned (I think) and partly unplanned due to Roberts looking out of sorts.

With O'carroll injured and lose either Fielden and Coley and we have baby pack out as Feka never figures.

The upshot is just when I thought we were getting players back at the business end of the season we go and end up with players out or banned and we can't afford that against Wire.

Dave

A lad I know spoke to phil vievers a bit back and he made the same burnout claims against us. There's no way of knowing if it's going to happen or not until it actually does so it's a bit of an empty claim for me. If we were currently suffering from burnout we'd be fading badly in the last 15-20 minutes of games but on Friday we outscored Wire in the second half and could have easily snatched the 2 points with some cooler heads and better execution. We certainly don't look like a team that's suffering from fatigue issues

We beat Saints in the 2nd half too.
Its natural people will start to worry. We've lost 2 of our last 7 - we're not in form, but its 8 weeks until Week 1 of the playoffs and we are sure to be at home. What could do us is the new playoff format. Under the top 6 system I'm sure we would get to the GF. But under the top 8, i'm not too sure.

Its not the burn out im worried about. Im more concerned about the confidence of the players when we Play Saints, Leeds and Warrington Possibly in the semis or final. Our forwards will get plenty more of what they got on Friday in the play off's. I just hope we play to our potential rather than 80% of it.

No real need to panic. The recent losses against Leeds, Saints and Warrington were in the main down to poor execution on our part. The Leeds game in particular should have seen us wrap the game up with 3-4 minutes remaining but we made several mistakes to let them get a last chance. Same with Warrington - Joel Tomkins' decision making isn't always what it could be, but in time the players will get more accomplished at making more sensible choices on the field.
None of the losses were down to fitness - Granted we missed players in certain positions but come play off time I'd like to think that we have as good a chance as anyone of having a fully fit squad to select from, especially given that we have two weekends off in the next month and a bit.

Both games we could and should have lost

Yeah but we didn't we won. We also could and should have been out of sight after 20 minutes in the two home games against Wire and Saints. IMO there isn't a great deal to choose between us, Wire, Saints and Leeds this season and any one of those four teams could take the big prize in the GF. My main concern is that the other three teams all have players who have won finals before, whereas we are relatively inexperienced on the field when it comes to playing in finals (only Pat, Deacon, Fielden and Tommy have any sort of final experience in our current squad)

I wouldn't worry about burnout yet. The only year I saw real burnout at Leeds was 2005 when we got to (and lost) the CC final and GF, and looked a dreadfully tired team in the GF. Wigan will have played a few games less than Leeds, Wire and Sts and that should help come the playoffs.

I can't believe how dramatic some people are being about this. The Wire game was a must win for them, they had a full strength side out and the rain helped their forwards get on top far more than they would have done anyway given the fact we were without Coley who has arguably been our best prop this year. Fielden and Prescott both played longer than usual and in energy sapping conditions against the biggest pack in the league and under normal circumstances Fielden would have been given far longer to rest after taking a really heavy hit. Piggy was missed when he went off too with McIlorum being out but this would have been far less of a problem had we had Coley in because he would have lessened everyone's workload. I think people are making a bit too much of the opening 20 mins or so too. Sure they made mistakes with the ball in hand but their defence was fired up and very effective as would be expected from a top side with a huge pack, loads of games against decent defensive sides take a while to get going, look at the Hudds game in Edinburgh for example.

Wire then replaced Carvell who looked like a liability just as we were starting to feel the effects of the opening hits at a time where we would normally be bringing a fresh prop on and rotating the hookers. They had their period of dominance, out muscling us and targeting the ball exceptionally well and we made a lot of mistakes both forced and unforced but we were clearly and understandably knackered at this point yet despite this and the fact that Amos too looked injured and lacking in confidence it still came down to the last few minutes and we were still in the game. Had Pat kicked the penalty in the first half instead of us deciding to tap the ball we'd have had an extra couple of points or if Prescott had managed to hold on to the ball after we tapped the ball (as he would have done in better weather) we may well have scored who knows, on another day Briers may well have missed the drop goal Pat might have grounded the ball and Carmont's foot might stayed out of touch in the same way as for them Solomona could and should have scored against us at their place. Look the best team won but Tony Smith summed it up in a nutshell when he spoke after the game, some times an inch can make all the difference when good teams play each other but all the players were committed.

If any of us had seen the respective team sheets early on in the season, let alone 12 months ago we'd have probably expected Wire to have put 50 points on us regardless of poor weather, Amos not being right, Fielden being concussed, a few harsh calls (blatant forward pass eg) etc etc.

The biggest positives from this game all things considered are that despite THEIR huge periods of dominance they only beat us by 7 points in a must win game and as we have demonstrated before this season, Saints home game without Lockers for example, continued to throw everything at them until the final whistle suggesting that any notion of burnout, particularly from players at other teams is wishful thinking on their part or possibly even mindgames rather than based on any real evidence. You could see by the reaction of the Wire players at the end that they had been in a really tough game and it meant everything to them.

I really wouldn't want to be Hull on Friday particularly if a couple of their players end up getting banned. Leeds, saints us and Wire are all capable of beating each other on their day and we now have a point to prove to all of them after some narrow defeats so whichever of these teams we face in the playoffs we have a further incentive to win, not that we need one and we also have the advantage at least over Saints and Leeds that we have been playing to a consistently high level throughout the season. Warrington will be full of confidence but the fact we are out of the cup could be a major advantage to us when it comes to the final few games.

A good post and I fully agree, the thing on this forum is that for some people the highs and lows are way over the top in either direction. We lost one game by 7 points anyone would think we had been battered.

Fact is we are still top by 2 points and all the remaining games are winnable (and even if not are Warrington going to win all their remaining games??). Given this with pretty much the same team as last year I think just about every fan would have taken the position we are in at this time last year.

Burn-out - hardly.