Firstly, I have not criticised Salford’s decision although I have expressed the reasons why I find it a bit strange. I would have thought that they would have wanted a home tie in the play offs.

Secondly, I accept your point that Leeds became champions from a different system than the one currently in place, if anything that system rewarded mediocrity even more. It still stick by my comment that the top five gave greater reward to the clubs that had performed best over the whole season, and rightly so.

I do feel this is the best system we've had but we have never had one that everyone will agree on and we likely never will. Maybe if we dropped the loop fixtures we could come up with some sort of new phase, where a top 4 or whatever go in to a mini league and the league leaders start with a 2 point advantage. If you had a 4 team mini league, you would have 3 weeks worth of superb fixtures before a top 2 went in to a Grand Final. In that sort of format every try/point in a game would count as it could come down to points difference in terms of who made a Grand Final. There are probably massive holes in an idea like that (I did only think of it off the top of my head in fairness) but it feels like it covers a few bases in terms of only the elite teams in any given season having a chance of winning a GF and it would give the league leaders an advantage.

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Point 1 - I never said you did, I said that this conversation crips up every time a club does something like this (albeit it seems to create a lot more headlines and negative press from fans etc when it's wigan involved).

Second point - my point was that every person will hwve their own personal favourite, but others will criticise it in some way as there is no perfect system. The top 5 system has issues, and whilst giving the top 2 a 2nd chance it also leave the first qualifier to the final having played 1 game in about 4 weeks leading up to the final
For clarity the Top 5 wss always my favourite from an entertainment point of view.

My overall point is that the majority of fans/press etc will want a particular system until said system doesn't produce the outcome they want, then they want something else u till that produces something they don't like
As with a lot of things in life currently it seems that people make judgements based on what they WANT the facts to be and produce arguments based around that viewpoint, (not saying you are by the way)
I'm just saying salford have made a decision that suits them that thousands of clubs in hundreds of sports have done in the past and will do again in the future irrelevant of what system the sport uses
In this instance I'd bet 90% of the frothing at the mouth is because its benefitted Wigan and disadvantaged a team that's currently got a media love in (much like the furore over a non situation 2 weeks ago over the yellow cards).
Let em get on with it, get our heads down, win tonight, win in a fortnight's time and win the GF and let everyone else get on with makimg excuses

I can’t disagree with that.

Perhaps Rowley's reason he stood down his first team players was that he thought they would lose at Wigan whatever team he put out.

Thinking Salford would lose, better not to risk his best players when they may have a better chance of a win in the play offs. He will have seen the Wigan v Leeds game and like everyone been aware of the Warriors physicality. I do think having seen that then having his teams recovery period reduced he decided to play his second best side.

It is rather annoying that you see lots of opposition fan comments saying we've been given the LLS, as though it was a given that we'd lose at home to a full strength Salford and as though the other 26 games haven't counted.

All par of the course I suppose. We've yet to win a fixture in the history of the game without the help of a ref/another club/corruption etc, let alone a trophy.

And that also speaks to the point earlier about the sort of advantage that 1st and 2nd have over the rest. For all we're talking about needing to play our best team to get them battle-hardened, that's safe in the knowledge that we have a week off and then a maximum of two games to prepare for. Most teams struggle to raise their intensity for one play off standard game, let alone three back to back if they want to win at OT.

Rowley is probably thinking that his best team, playing at their best, have half a chance of causing an upset. But he's probably also thinking that backing up performances is really hard at the best of times for a squad like Salford's, so why put yourself in that position?

https://x.com/WiganWarriorsRL/status/18 ... gr%5Etweet Over 15k sold for tonight, pretty surprising all things considered as i can't imagine a big turnout coming from Salford.

https://x.com/WiganWarriorsRL/status/18 ... gr%5Etweet Over 15k sold for tonight, pretty surprising all things considered as i can't imagine a big turnout coming from Salford.

North Stand tickets on sale via ticketing. Assuming that means community support in there again.

Eckersley in for Miski, otherwise unchanged

Number one priority - avoid suspensions. No stupid tackles.

For me Peet got it bang on no point resting players go for the silverware and let the cards land where they may good performance against a poor Salford side can't ask for anymore

An easy game and then a 2 week break worries me slightly but the side look ready for a big tilt at a Grand Slam (has anyone in the media acknowledged that possibility yet? ). Opportunities like this don't come around very often and I think they'll know that.

I didn't notice any major injury worries. Dupree looked about ginger but nothing major. In terms of discipline,you never know what they may find but fingers crossed. Keighran was a bit daft in putting the shoulder in to Ormonroyd at one point but it was to the body and not the head, so it should be ok. Ellis seemed to put some contact on Cust, that he wasn't happy about in the 2nd half but I didn't really see what it was.

Can't imagine there'd be anything to worry about. Didn't seem to be a difficult game to referee, apart from the one flare-up. Very few pens and six-agains, I thought.

And yeah; Dupree. I said to my neighbour, he's been better the last few games, but he's still not really pulling up any trees, is he? What do you think?

I think he is doing fine.

professional performance and job done

hopefully no injuries or suspensions picked up

some nicely worked tries, and left some out there too, with what seemed like an obsession to kick to score at one point



Little flare up in the 2nd half was needed as it got the lads focussed again

Sidlow gave me the biggest laugh of the night when he blew everything up and then as everyone was expecting him to take in the next Salford carry and keep the drama going, proceeded to literally hide directly behind the dummy half, so he couldn't get the ball



Jamie Peacock like it was not!

2 wins away from immortality.

We had every excuse going not to win that Shield. World Club, Wembley, Mid week games, spine players missing most of summer.

Absolutely brilliant.

to be honest at the time i thought Byrne was stupid for getting involved, when the game was won, and all we needed to do was see it out. But it did get the crowd going and refocus us

Re Sidlow, completely agree, he didnt want go anywhere near the ball

Found it funny last night when one fella shouted 'you manc b*stard' at Sidlow, I had to shout back 'he's from Whelley'

Hard to say if there is much talk of it on the Sky coverage as I've been at the games but there seems so little talk across the game about a potential Grand Slam. I think the desperation to see a new name on the Grand Final trophy is just knocking it in to the long grass. I know a couple of Leeds legends were bowing out in 2015 but we heard nothing else all season apart from them going for a treble and this would be a bigger achievement, with it including a win over an Australian side many say are one of, if not the best NRL team of all time.

Make no mistake, these Wigan players need to win 2 games to put themselves right up there with some of the best achievements the game has seen. Opportunities like that do not come around very often, if ever.

It would be an outstanding achievement particularly as you say the distraction of the WCC and the injuries to French and Field. If you do go on and do it then I won't have any hesitation in saying its up there with anything else

However here comes the but... Its a bit naughty to expect rival fans to laud your achievement when Wigan fans (not saying you necessarily) have put our 4 in a row achievement down to a) Covid and b) a poor quality SL.

You can't have it both ways.

I asked about the media, I expect nothing from opposition fans.

On the Sky coverage it seems that Hull KR are their darlings - Wigan get grudging praise but several times they had to mention the two yellow cards for Hull KR and how different it could have been....etc etc. Think they would absolutely love it if Hull KR did win the GF.

Even the performance last night Wigan were getting some criticism because they did not rack up 70/80 points each half, especially from the commentary team - Dave Woods needs some new glasses how often does he get players names wrong - he even mixed up Marshall and Eckersley at one point!