Lack of intensity, poor ball control, stuck in first gear...though that would still have been enough if not for some inept refereeing.

The ref allowed Bradford to control the speed of the game' he never seemed in full control. Ganson would have been a vast improvement !

You should really only blame the ref if you win, but that call before half-time was shocking. A clear knock-on from Bradford which (even their players believed to be a knock-on) led to a try. That gave them the lead at half-time and 6 points which was not deserved.

Add to that his lack of controlling Bradfords players when they got fired up and started having a second go every single tackle.

I can't blame the loss on the ref alone but the try just before half-time and the sending off were the decisions which changed the game.

Feel sorry for the marketing guys. Nearly every time they get a big crowd to the DW stadium we lose !

The referee was poor but we would have won if Micky Mac didn't have a brain fart and if Hock could have kept hold of the ball. The overall ball retention was poor but Hock was on another level tonight. Our right side defence struggled too.

Woeful Wigan, terrible ref, Wire lose, so not a total disaster



But seriously, we were poor.

One half back in Finch and we are struggling.

I am praying Sam was rested, no Sam and No Tommy = big trouble.

We should just play all our games away. We'd probably do even better.
Having said that, a pack with Farrell, Lloyd, Lauaki, Crosby and Flower was always going to be too small to dominate a team with forwards like Bradford's. The likes of Lima, Prescott, Dudson and Hansen add that collision winning impact and big physical presence that just isn't there when you have too many smaller forwards.

Bradford spent the whole game spoiling and slowing the game down, and they got away with it. It's the only way they know how, and it worked. We could have still won though had it not been for a few bombed chances and not forgetting Micky's idiocy. Disappointed but I was pleased with the performance of Jack Murphy, We are really missing Tommy though, We had very little sense of direction at times tonight. He alone would have made the difference tonight even without Sam.

Sounds like a bad day at the office every team has them resting key players kills you look at us for proof of that

I thought the forwards matched up pretty well, it was our ball control that was mostly at fault, plus the sending off, of course.

Hock's worst game in a long time. If Goulding hadn't been injured, I think he'd have been off.

I'd have been tempted to but Eric or Flower in the second row with 15/20 to go.

maybe hes trying to hard now ??? the way he plays,, your always going to get a bad game outta him sooner or later,, lets hope its just a blimp on his part

Maybe. It wasn't just his usual daft offloads, we know he's gonna do that, he just didn't seem to be winning collisions as he usually does.

That tackle by Elima was fantastic.

I think playing against a pack which was more dominant made it harder for him to punch holes like he normally would.

I also thought Hughes and Lloyd's defence was poor tonight. They fell off an awful lot of tackles. Lloyd seemed to sidestep into Kearney for his try scoring opportunity too.

The likes of Crosby and Flower might run hard at the line but they don't seem to trouble the defenders like the bigger props do. They might make a yard more but rarely do they seem to dominate the collisions and that's the most important thing. I'd be surprised if either of those two or Lauaki matched the average metres made that Lima makes or even Prescott.

Farrell, as good as he is, doesn't offer that physical presence he offers something completely different while Lloyd is probably out of his depth at the moment.

I said to my friend that the forwards weren't on top like they usually are. That said, the young pack more than held their own and they're only going to get better. Really missed our senior forwards though - not that it'll be mentioned by anyone.

The problem was ball retention, the referee and the Tommy/O'Loughlin situation. The first two are pretty self explanatory, the third: O'Loughlin isn't a HB. Farrell isn't a LF. We lose ALL momentum when O'Loughlin isn't the pivot at 13. Should have brought back Mellor rather than shifting two guys out of position.

That semi-final against Leeds is going to be awfully tough now.

We we awful, the worst we have played all season. I think Sam having and knock then losing Goulding early on, on top of our current injuries, was just a couple too many. We lost any coherence in attack.

Disappointing tonight but nothing I'm too bothered about going forward.

It was nothing more than a blip tonight, an anomaly.

Poor ball control, spurned chance after spurned chance, a sending off, uncharacteristic defense. Those aren't the qualities we've come to expect from this Wigan side. Unfortunately what could go wrong tonight did and we paid the price against a spirited Bradford side. It tuck all those things to happen for us to lose narrowly with a weakened side. It just wasn't meant to be. Written in the stars if you will.

I'm most disappointed as someone else points out, that everytime we get a bumper crowd at the DW we lose.

Any news on fuzzy?

Would be a big miss. Looked ankle?

Thing was, we had chances enough - Farrell's first break where he passed when he could probably have scored, his second where he sent a perfect pass to Gelling, even Rhodri Lloyd had a decent chance in the second where he decided to try & cut inside to beat the last man rather than running into the enormous gap on the outside. We just kept letting them off the hook.

Add to that Hock being a liability all the way through, playing Lockers as a half when he just isn't, giving Charnley nothing all game & no Sam... And I know Gelling shows potential at times, but to me he's looking like an athlete not a rugby player.

Can only assume Sam was injured - surely if you were going to rest him you'd have done it against Widnes?

This loss doesn't bother me one bit. I can't work out whether it's because the final standings mean nothing or because it changed nothing in the league anyway?

I think losses in a strange way are what high teams need. We were never going to go out for the rest of the season and win every single remaining game, better losing in a nothing game to Bradford than a big match vs saints.

there was certainly a great deal of hot air & nowt much else on display tonight