Really? You would have thought the league table would be the judge of that.

Remarkable my Jim Royle.

Competition was much stronger and deeper than now.

How's about
Leeds with Hanley Lowes and Schofield
Widnes with Davies Offiah Tamati and Sorenson
Wire with Drummond Woods Gregory and Boyd
Saints with Loughlin Ropati and Ward
Cas with Crooks Blackmore and Nikau

Throw in the second tier Halifax Oldham Fev etc much stronger than now.

Tbh the league's a lot more even now than it was back then the cap has ensured this and its now so no one team can have a starting 13 where every1 of them are world class and would walk onto any team.

iirc we were not that bad then for a semi pro team and for arguments sake had wigan not been in the league we would have won a few league's

not really, they've beaten us twice and haven't looked troubled either time, battered Leeds and Saints recently too, they're peaking nicely at the right time, quite comfortably the best team in the league imo

If its a lot more even as you say, how is that the league ends up pretty much the same each year, and, apparently, one team have won the cup for 3 out of 4 years!!!

Looks like the cap has really levelled thing up...

Salary Cap myth alert! Great stuff. I thought the SC propagandists had disappeared, but you come out of the woodwork with this nonsense, the competition myth and the semi-pro myth, two urban legends for the price of one. Hilarious.

Feel free to shout about it, I would expect you too and you fully deserve to.

Just don't do it on the Wigan forum and make stupid comparisons without expecting to be quite rightly laughed at.

I have to laugh at the ''but Wigan were professional back then....'' comments. After browsing the teams from back then, there were more academy & Wigan born products in those Wigan sides than Wire fielded on Saturday and that was when there was only two subs.

Again, we wouldn't have to offload facts like the above if Wire fans wouldn't give it the big one trying to compare themselves to Wigan.

Wrong. The salary Cap is less than perfect, but it has led to more competition. It may well be that there are only three or four teams with realistic chances each year, but before the cap there was only one.

I didn't make the comparisons but I don't think that it can be considered 'stupid' to compare a team that has won three out of four cup finals with one that won eight in a row. Sports fans/journalists are always doing this sort of thing, as in '[iAre you the next Daley Thompson[/i'? Lee Briers can hardly be criticised when a commentator asks him for a view. In golf people compare Graham McDowell to Tiger Woods and fans don't respond with 'don't be stupid' or 'come back when McDowell has won twelve majors'.

It is stupid as Wigan were also winning championships at the same time.

That's the last I'm saying. I can't even believe I got into the early stages of a debate....

This thread appears to be about the Challenge Cup.

In the same way that it's not about Tiger Woods...?

They would have been better asking if we were comparable to the Saints team that won Challenge Cups in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008. If we win next year we will have 4 in 5 years and matched them. 8 in a row is 7 years off and some of our players will be in their 40s by then...

Analogy is not comparison.

Didn't stop Gus Risman.

https://twitter.com/VickyHall33/status/ ... to/1/large

https://twitter.com/VickyHall33/status/ ... to/1/large

Wrong. You're talking about the number of clubs that win trophies, rather than the overall competitiveness of teams and in any case the era of Wigan domination was never going to last - contrary to the myth makers Wigan weren't the only club spending lots of money. Leeds offered Will Carling £1m. It is also important to remember that Wigan's domination was down to the club embracing Australian coaching, backroom and fitness methods and techniques as much as signing players (a big factor also was an extraordinary crop of home grown players). When the club stopped innovating others caught up and then overtook Wigan. That was inevitable, with or without the SC. A one-off historic anomaly (the unprecedented domination by Wigan of RL in the late 80s and early-mid 90s) should not be used to disguise the utter failure of the SC.

In fact the SC has been worse than a failure, it's been counterproductive. Leaving aside the role it has played in the financial decline of RL clubs by not incentivising revenue growth, on the playing side the SC era has undoubtedly seen smaller clubs become less competitive - the playing field has become even less level. It is now inconceivable that a club the size of Widnes could win the league. Pre-SC many small clubs regularly finished in the top 4 - you just need to look back at the league tables in the 80s and early 90s to see this.

Well said.

They should scrap the cap and fans of unambitious clubs should stop complaining about how much Warrington have spent putting their all star squad together. I know Wigan fans would never complain about our this, because they respect ambition.

Did Offiah hold three Cup winners at the age of just 22 ? I think not

Or 24 even - whoops



Good job I was only joking anyway

A quick look on Wiki, and Martin won 2 Championships and 3 Premiership's with Widnes before the age of 24.

Just to put that into perspective Warrington have won 3 Championships and 1 Premiership in 136 years of existence.

And Ricky Bibey has the same number of cup winners medals as Brian Bevan.

And Tyrone McCarthy has won more than Gary Schofield

In fact has anybody in the current Wigan squad got as many cup winners medals as McCarthy or Chris Riley?

I've won as many challenge cup winners and championship medals as Garry Schofield.

We have three pensioners who managed to pick up Lance Todd, how many did Edwards pick up?