Agree he is a great player but he is getting a reputation to be that of a tampon, surely not good for team continuity? Saying that it was similar with Sam last year and you guys did alright!

Wire: 26
Warriors: 16

Att:12,500
MOM: Westwood

Can't see us winning this one I'm afraid.

He is genuinely injured and has been for the past 3 games for wigan and England. One thing you can't call O'loughlin is that he is soft and him being injured is hurting Wigan quite clearly.

Didnt call him soft.

Wire 30-12 Wigan

Just don't think we'll have enough in us tonight, with o'loughlin out along with McIlorum out, that's a lot lost in defence. Not to mention how bad our defence has been in the opening weeks. Hope I'm wrong though.

Attendance: 11,300

Don't know what all the negativity is about, you'll win this game.

Going straight from work, hopefully there is a cash turnstile in the Wigan end.

There usually is unless it's a sell out, it won't sell out.

The problem area in defence isn't Goulding, Smith or Charnley, it's the players inside them. Every try that Rovers made down that right hand side and every break came because Rovers had a massive overlap, with 7 or 8 players facing 4 or 5. There's very little the wide defenders can do in that situation. If they stick they'll be criticised for being hesitant, if they rush out they'll be accused of causing the try by rushing out. The players defending down the middle were pretty useless at spotting the fact that Rovers were adding numbers on the short side. That's one of the areas that O'Loughlin makes a big difference to, because he reads the defence, spots the movement of players and will direct players into the right positions or move himself across to cover. No one down the middle showed any organisation or managed to spot that the numbers were wrong and as a result the players out wide were made to look incompetent when really they were faced with an impossible task. That's without taking into account the fact that Rovers did have good shape in those attacking situations too which probably would have troubled a defence that was numbered up correctly.

they never looked like scoring even the intercept he was closing to dropping it. And we thought we had problems..

Worst I've seen Wire play against us in a very long time (I'd guess at ten years plus).

Rudderless.

Absolutely.

No idea how to get over the line.
Briers definitely a bigger loss than Sam
Can't believe how quiet their fans were. The wind had been well and truly taken out their sails.
Totally different experience to the last few years.
If a day out at DW is flat for us, it must be worse at HJ for Wire fans.
All Wigan players stood up today. Back on track!

Worst Warrington team I have seen in a long time, literally none of their players worried me.

Toothless Wire - Post Dad's Army syndrome - massive problems ahead.

Kind of called it

Well, you were half-right. Our defence was solid last night. If you hadn't got that the interception, you would have been nilled.

Wire had about 3 players missing last night that would probably make their 17 but all were forwards and that wasn't their issue IMO (although they're certainly not as fearsome). Their halfbacks and Ratchford at fullback looked clueless.

Us on the other hand didn't play particularly well but should have won by more and have our two best players to come back in. We can be pretty pleased about that.

A couple of things about last nights game that puzzle me. One is - how much did the conditions affect the game?

And the other is how bad were Wire?

Great to win without Lockers. I thought Faz and Burgess were outstanding. Bateman was good and Williams made a real impact after a good stint by Logan.

Part way through the second half I thought - this is a really poor quality game. So I don't know what to make of our win.

Who cares how well you're playing in March. If you're picking up 2 points at the HJ, then that's enough. You've got until October to polish things up.

Westwood really is a thug cheap shot on Matty Smith just on the half time hooter , went unpunished . Good atmosphere in our end . Wire were Dire . Lockers and Micky Macc to come back Burgess coming on nicely but we need Matty to get better with his kicking but a good night

In a nutshell...

People seem to expect a team to hit the floor running, it doesn't. And that includes the much lauded Leeds team of recent years that was stable, and seemingly, according to some, refused to sell players... Every new season has a period of transition. Whilst this team does lack experience compared to some recent Wigan teams, we do have good squad depth. I would rather be in our position, than Warringtons...





In oh so many ways!!

Bent over receiving.. dry, you mean?

they worry me!

Cracking post.

Thursday showed the difference when the forwards in the middle slide and mark as they are supposed to. The forwards certainly got the blame for the tries against Hull KR and it is a big reason why Bateman started instead of Hughes. It is far too simplistic just to blame the wide men especially when they were continually being left with 5 or 6 v 3.