It's a pity they don't do that on those multiple occasions when it's not the Challenge Cup Final.

Huddersfield are one of the consistently worst-supported teams in SL.

I don't blame them for coming and enjoying their big day out, but after the way the Wigan fans rallied and supported the Warriors when they were facing the possibility of relegation, I'll never consider our lot second fiddle to anyone.

I'm not impressed by 'fantastic support' when it's only for the Cup Final.

He came up with match winning moments I agree, and fair play to him for that, but I I thought in general play we looked rudderless with both him and Cust having off days.

He came up big when he had to though and ultimately did come up with a few seconds of magic so fair play to him.

Just watch where he started when Smith scored his try he was on the opposite side of the pitch and followed the play to score his try .When you see this on tv it will not be so obvious but from behind you can see what he did.

Agreed.

The trophy should go to the player who makes a difference to the result. Without Smith yesterday we lose.
But the press pick the winner with about 5 minutes to go - just before Smith’s bit of magic.

Spot on. They are an awful, awful club imo.

Loads of talk on here recently about the price of tickets and how the club would love an extra 2k on the gate each week. All of that is well and good, but the wouldn't it be great if certain teams brought some away fans and helped lighten the burden for everyone.

Always seems like it's left to the big sides to take up the slack. On things like player development, or even taking a consistently decent following. All you ever get off the back of it are words like "entitled" thrown at you too.

By the way 7 couldn't hear the Hudds fans. The majority of the atmosphere seemed to be from our end. Maybe it's the acoustics of where a person is sat?

We didn't look rudderless at all. We dropped too much ball and made too many errors none of which was down to Smith. When we held on to the ball we looked good and scored 3 excellent tries.

Towards the end the Giants were content to take the tackle on 6th play rather than risk kicking in goal an risking the chance of Field , French or Marshall going the length of the field . Their negativity cost them the game . I said to Ross when they took the 2 after a couple of minutes that they were not confident. They should have won the game but a good team on form would have beaten the Giants with some to spare .

EW

Bar a silly error at the play the ball, I thought Smith was absolutely excellent. His defence has come on leaps and bounds. He was a major threat all the way through the game, he scores a try and creates the winner. Our man of the match by a fair margin I thought (Smithies and Bateman very good also) and if they decide the Lance Todd after the game, he probably gets that as well.

Absolutely NK. Jon is generally a good poster but he needs to stop watching games with the opposition fans if that was his take from the game. Smith MOM by a country mile. No one else including McQueen had the effect on the game that Smith had. If McQueen had then Huddersfield would have won. It really is that simple.

Well I backed Smith for Lance Todd so I agree it should have been picked at the end

Hi Jon
I would suggest whatever you were drinking that created this massive hangover may have impaired your judgement on the day

I've never been convinced by Harry Smith but (1 ptb knock on aside) he was very good yesterday. Defensively very sound, kicking game was good, ran the ball and took the line on a number of time creating breaks/half breaks, scored one with a superb piece of support play considering normally he would be mainly on the other side of the field and created the other 2 tries, 1 with an unbelievably good ball to Thornley for the Field Try and to cap it all, after the magnificent ball from Tommy L, he straightened up the defence with his first movement which narrowed the defensive line for a second rather than immediately look to go wide, and then put in an inch perfect kick at the most pressurised time of the game.
Now
We may end up disagreeing on the above

But what I am going to say and will never ever change my mind is that our fans were out of this world yesterday!
There must have been 20k plus there, that while end was 95% Wigan and we had loads down the sidelines and in the Huddersfield end. In fact I would say closer to 25k
The atmosphere albeforebthe game was 80% Wigan fans in the pubs and street and the Wigan end was tremendous, on the concourses, and during the game and even when going behind the fans kept going.

I'll give you a free pass if you were sat next to the Giants fans at their end and you thought the 5k they brought were fantastic, brilliant.
But the Wigan fans outnumbered then 5 to 1 and there was no lack of support for them

Just watching the game back and he also saves a try for Ollie Russell about 12 mins in, when he races him back in to the in goal and makes up ground on him to get the ball dead.

What a stadium…

Much preferred that experience than Wembley.

Great facilities, good quality food & drinks.

Coach park just a short walk from the ground too.

Glad I didn’t bother with the local pubs as the fan village was far more spacious.

Can’t comment on the match as it’s all a bit of a blur now.

Good lord, you were smashed yesterday. Smith having a shocker despite being involved in three tries. The Wigan fans being 'quiet' and out-sung by the pittance Huddersfield brought.

You probably need to watch the game back because you're commenting on something that only happened in your inebriated mind.

It's much harder to get to than Wembley if you take the train into London. You're left with a 20-30 minute walk and a long wait to get into the Underground. I assume they're going to fix that eventually.

Not smashed at all. Just saying as I saw it.

Happy to watch it back later when I get home.

I thought both teams were very poor on last tackle plays and both teams were rudderless around the halves for long periods of the game. That was down to the 9s too.

When Tommy came on we looked more controlled.

With 10 minutes to go we’re we’re playing like headless chickens flinging the ball about with no direction chasing the game rather than keeping calm and trying to build sets.

That was my take on it.

Fantastic that Smith came up with the big play when he did and your only need a few minutes of brilliance to turn a game which he produced but over the course of the 80 I don’t think he had one of his better games, non of the halves did.

Giants badly missed Fages as their last tackle plays and organisation were shocking and as others have identified probably cost them the game.

Great result for us and in my opinion I felt Smithies was our best on the day.

Not nice to see a player get injured but I think we would have been very happy to see the withdrawal of Chris Hill who had a brilliant first 20 mins.

I think your being harsh again. Smith has clearly got talent but last year would have done him a lot of harm in his development. At the stage he’s up to he needs a strong partner along side him and is not yet able to take control of a game on his own. I think he’s shown a lot of progress this year and came up with the big play when it most mattered.

Understandably there are a lot of comparisons between Smith and Dodd. One of the biggest differences is Dodd was playing along side Lomax where Smith is along side Cust who we shouldn’t forget is also young and inexperienced for a half.

Great atmosphere in a great Stadium. I'd be happy if the final is played there every year. Wembley is a morgue in comparison.

Took my daughter for her first game and she loved it. We were on 10 yard line next to the South stand and the South stand looked brilliant from our perspective.

Smith MoM, involved in many key moments both defence and attack. He's been outstanding for us since Tommy was injured and living up to his promise now.

Wigan deserved to win. Strange how a narrative of a game is shaped. When Saints won with the last touch of the game in the GF due to a fortuitous bounce and a speculative chase by Welsby it was all about Saints. When we win with a great play, outstanding skill by Tommy, Smith and pace from Liam it's about 'hudds deserved to win it'.... We scored three outstanding tries, 2nd half we made some great breaks. We deserved to win it. No lucky bounce for us.

Yes we were a bit clunky in the 1st half especially, I think O'Neilhad his worst game for us and showed we were missing some control in directing plays from dummy half - BUT we stuck in and didn't fold and you have to credit the players for that.

Hudd's were very good in shutting outplays down to bring our edges into the game, and I think this is something we will build on, how to get our strike players into the game when the defence is jamming in like they did.

I think we will build on this and improve even more for the play offs.

Great result if not a great performance - but it's a W and in a final that is all that counts. Thought it was a fairly poor game overall with a lack of quality on both sides made a very bitty game.

Too many silly mistakes in the first half killed any momentum we tried to build (plus the ref seemed to let Hudds lie on every tackle for ages and slow the game down).

Delighted for Marshall to score the winning try after all the issues he has had.

Disagree as thought Smith had a decent game he is getting better with each game recently- Cust probably had his worst game for a while, perhaps guilty of trying a bit too hard.

Smithies had a good game apart from the high shots he really need to watch that, but the off load was great where did that come from? Bateman was good and worked his socks off, as was Singleton (our best prop). Farrell was quiet for some reason and Mago will never make it here or anywhere - poor signing.Credit to Thornley as well as he was clearly playing on one leg (Bibby was pretty decent as well).

This is so true. Cust is in his first year as senior player at 6. He's not an established senior player.

When you look at it Smith has more experience and we know what a car crash last year was. Both are learning their craft and for Smith to come out of this after last year like he has done shows the strength of character he has when fans were happy to bin him off at the start of the season.

The 20th win is all that people will remember and all that will be in the record books. Very harsh on Huddersfield - they will be serious contenders over the next few years in all likelihood. We hung in there and executed three good tries but it was tough going outside of that.

Maybe we got a big dose of good luck to balance out the bad bounce in the last GF we played. Tui L missing his kicks, Chris Hill and Fages' injuries, no yellow for Smithies. I did come away from the game thinking we got away with one but if you're 2 points behind with a few minutes to go then you have a chance. Huddersfield's umbrella defence was smart in some ways but cost them in the end - they nearly got done early in the game with Field's kick to Marshall.

We don't win the game without Tommy Leuluai being there to nail down a few bolts - great effort from him to play. Bevan French was very solid and Harry Smith was great with his involvements in key moments (although there was a poor grubber kick through which led to Hudds breaking down field and scoring). Liam Marshall is rocks and diamonds - similar to the semi final a poor play led to a Hudds try (terrible attempt on Jerry) but evened it out by being in the right place at the right time. Brad O'Neill struggled and I'd really like to see Mago come onto the field and start pumping those legs after contact with offloading his 2nd priority.

Great to win the cup and congrats to the club. Brilliant to see a massive turnout from the fans showing there's still a big appetite for RL success in the town. I'd love to see this team really maximise their potential in the 2nd half of the year (after the inevitable hangover next week which I think we should allow them

).

Smithies your best ?Should have been sin binned at least once

He was outstanding the Poundland Knowles. Doesn’t really matter if he should’ve been sin binned or not. Rather him not give the penalties away but these things happen.

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But he wasn’t and we won the cup. Hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as we did

He wasn’t, we won and he had a great game.

Great day out.