It's been a difficult 24 hours and I have deliberately stayed off this forum since.

However, this last 24 hours has also proved something to me. If this had been Leeds or Warrington I would have had nasty abusives hurled in my face all day, but this has not been the case. All Wigan fans I know have been very gracious and it has proved that you are all ten times better than those teams supporters.

Our two clubs are great rivals but I see it as an intense but friendly rivalry, and long may this continue.

Wigan have been the best team in the country by some distance this season and you have thoroughly deserved the right to be called Champions. I am far from happy with our team's performance yesterday but had we played to our full potential, it's unlikely that we would have won.

You have all been through a lot over the last few years but the vast majority stuck with you through sometimes thin and thinner. For that alone, you deserve respect.

You have now come through the pain and earned your day in the sun. I hope we have ours again soon.

Enjoy your moment, but it will only be for twelve months, ok?!

Great post, thanks alot. Agree with you 100% about the friendly rivalry. Wigan and Saints fans seem to have a mutual respect for eachother which other clubs dont seem to have... its great to beat you though

We were chatting with a group of Saints fans right after the game, and i have to say they were full of nothing but praise for the Wigan team
Every credit to them, as it would have been easy to be bitter and twisted about the result (ala certain other SL teams).
Total respect to the Saints club and their supporters.
Should serve as a reminder to everyone in SL, after a season not without 'incident', that even the most fearsome of rivalries doesnt have to become anything more than friendly banter.
Gotta be said, those Saints fans restored my faith in everything thats so brilliant about the greatest game of all.
Top marks all round!

Can't put it better than what has already been said. Great post and thanks for showing why the Wigan/Saints rivalary is the one that best shows what is great about our game.

As an aside we had one lone Saints supporter on our Double Decker coach full of Wiganers yesterday. I almost felt sorry for him....almost, but not quite...

Have to agree with DD. I was dreading logging back onto RLFANS after the defeat but it's not been that bad at all. I congratulated every Wigan fan i seen yesterday running back to the tram line and not once did i see Wigan fans gloating.

Fully deserved win Wigan. No Complaints.

Good luck in the World Club Challenge.

zzzz what with all this friendly garbage???

I have to say I am more than mildy amused with the fact the one they call "the King" finished his career with a successive FOUR grand final losses and more importantly lost in his last ever game against us?

This all fits in nicely with his dreadfully poor international career. How many times did he pull up "injured" just before a test series?

Still, he has his statue (even though it does look like Farrell).

Yours Sincerely,
A Wigan fan, gracious as always in victory

I think for Wigan fans it was more about the winning of the trophy after quite a barren spell than who it was actually against. Not saying beating Saints was irrelavent though, that is never the case.

Hard Lines. See you same again next year?

So good to see such gracious responses.

Couldn't agree more with the OP, even though the rivalry between the clubs is greater than that between us and Leeds or Warrington, I always find the relations between the Wigan and Saints fans to be better.

Long may it continue.

I think a lot of this thaw in relations with Saints has to do with the Wolfs.

The thought that Wire could ever replace Saints as our main rivals frankly makes me shudder. Don't get me wrong, I detest Saints with a passion (as any Wigan fan should) but the old adage is you judge a man by the calibre of his enemies, and frankly on that score I simply have to prefer Saints over Wire! The imbecilic Wolfs that have infested this board at times this season, their moronic and badly behaved fans at matches and the ridiculous claims that they make about being a great club (when they haven't beat Saints since shortly before the Boer War and are never going to win a SL title at this rate), ugh (shudders).

Saints fans on the other hand have taken this season's trials and tribulations in a way that has earned some grudging respect on my part (as has the way their side turned things around after a poor start) and their behaviour at the GF during the minute's silence did them great credit (in contrast to some of our idiots who should be deported to Warrington or Leigh immediately). Yes the McEwan's Lager shirt wearing muppets who turn out only for the big matches are irritating but it just isn't annoying on anywhere near the same level as the Dire Wolfs.

I suspect Saints fans feel the same way about the Wolfs, which makes two things we now agree on (the other being of course that matches between our two clubs are the greatest in British RL).

Ah D.D., I have a grudging respect for Saints and have enjoyed many a banter with you over the years, especially during our particularly rough patch in recent years. Hopefully this was reflected in the text message I sent to you on saturday night, although frankly I can't actually remember what I wrote.

That said, I still wish I was on the train to work with you this morning so you could see the full extent of my daft grin.

Wigan v Saints

The proper derby game. The real derby game. The only derby game.

Agree with Dave wholeheartedly.

I was glad that Wigan reached the final because I knew it would be a relaxed affair and not filled with vitriol fuelled by booze.

I was proved right. The final was a poor game form my perspective, but ultimately Saints ‘got away’ without being truly thumped which is what they deserved and everyone went home without any daft incidents.

The derby games should be a great affair next year.

It is a great rivalry but also a respectful one. The lack of trouble at the game was an indication of that, I think there were only 8 arrests out of nearly 72k people

Well done Wigan, easily the best team all year and you comfortably beat the previous 2 Grand Final winners in the play-off series to win it. I can't think of a more deserving team to win the comp.

I always felt it was Wigan's year so I ended up winning £137.31 on the result. Doesn't really make up for the defeat but meant going to the final cost me nothing!

This is what I try to get into Wire fans heads. If we had beat Wire on sat it wouldnt have happened there would have been trouble!
When we lost at the GPW Recruitment Stadium

last season in the play offs a group of us stopped in the Black bull all night and had some good banter with saints fans in there, same again after good friday!
As you said there is a respect between both teams as well as a rivalry.

It as been a long time coming for us but as you say we have stuck with the club through thin and thinner and come out the other end!
Would take beating you in next years final now

Aye, it was a nice feeling on Saturday. Living in Billinge, and being a well known Wigan fan round these parts it's been great that Saints fans have congratulated us on the win and having no hard feelings about it. I got many txts off Saints friends congratulating us on our victory, but one in particular stood out by saying that he was happy for me mostly after knowing that I had carried on watching the shower of pap that we did whilst Saints were lifting trophies left, right and centre.

I'll never forget txting him when we was away at Cas in 2006 saying that we are down, simple as that. That was probably the lowest I had ever felt as a Wigan fan and I won't lie, I can remember being close to tears that day with other Wigan fans around us. There was no booing, or clapping it was very hard to take in and many trips away that year felt like the longest ever trips coming home. But Saturday night took all that pain away, all the knocks and abuse we've taken over last few years was well worth the wait for on Saturday night. And I'll be honest it's as good as any of the trophies I watched us win in our dominant period of the 90's because of what we have all gone through whilst following this great club over the last few years. Probably because I was lucky enough to be born in 85 so I hadn't seen the club in the lower division. In the words of Andy Gray, take a bow Wigan fans take a bow

Sorry to butt in on the Wigan - Saints love in plus Wire bitchfest but at the last game at KR didn't Wigan fans attack a steward, take down bits of the away end and then get a police escort back into town? and then in the game at the DW Graham had a pint thrown at him?

Great show of respect.

Oh look, a wire fan trying to cause aggro. I'd better sit down before I pass out from shock

Every club has thier collection of idiots, you should know about that!

I hate st helens, but I respect them, thats the difference, couldnt give a toss about warrington to be honest, annoying more than anything, a bit like the flies on holidays that wont go away, most of the warrington posters on this board have been missing for the last week, perhaps there been a problem with the internet round your end!

here here

the problem in Warrington is not with the internet, its with the electricity.. they only had this little luxury installed a few weeks back and its been temperamental since, for the time being they are back to candles and fires..

Thats great but I didn't ask for your thoughts on Warrington.

I know you didnt, but still thought id give it anyway!

You can respect your rivals is all im saying. Unfortunatley, not everyone can, as a lot of posters (from all clubs on this forum), like to hide behind the keyboard being WUM'S.

I dont know! You telling me or asking me?
I certainly didnt get an escort back into town!
So are you trying to tell me that if we had beaten you on sat then there would have been no trouble after the game??

I was telling you.

Who knows you might of missed it if there had of been, like you have missed it at Saints.

Don't let the facts get in the way of bad mouthing Wire off though.

This is worth repeating! Away you go, posters.