Good to grind out a close game for a change against a top side after quite a few glorified training runs, but yet again we struggled against a side that used the rush defence out wide to cut off our "play" and didn't really seem to know what to do at times apart from drive it up the middle. It's happened lots against Warrington, happened against Huddersfield earlier in the season and we struggled last night despite the Whinos missing their two best forwards.

When we go wide we need to make sure we have more than one play which we don't seem to at the moment, especially later in the season.

It is at times like this when you are being crowded out by a rush defence that you need that plan B, it was crying out for Sam being moved to first receiver a few times.

The Leeds defenders on seeing Sam at the start of a move would not have dared to rush up otherwise he would have been through, it would not have been required at every move but the flexibility it would give would get the opposition thinking.

could not agree more.
we have one move and if the defence are playing well enough to nullify it we seem short of options.

If you have spotted this 'one move', surely coaches of every team we have played this season have also, why have they not made plans to stop it and prevent us from scoring ?, maybe we have other moves that you and these other teams we have beaten have not yet 'sussed out'.

Some folk are never happy are they? They moaned that we couldn't close out a tight game. Pats try was a perfect example of the forwards doing a number on their opposite pack and sucking the defenders in, and THEN spreading the ball out wide.

btw. After watching the video again I'm even more convinced that Sams kick was a goal.

Possibly, but we were probably better off with it missing with the time left on the clock. I'd have been a lot more nervous playing a set from our own line after the restart instead of from the dropout. Getting it to go dead was the main thing.

Without wanting to over-egg this pudding, I do agree that against a well marshalled defence we look limited. We had the same problem away at Huddersfield earlier in the season. Able to mix it in the middle, but missing that cutting edge.

There's time yet, but I feel it's unlikely we'll be able to batter our way to the trophies we want by brute force alone. I'm a big fan of Wane, but if he has an Achilles heel, this could be it. We need to 'outfootball' some of these better quality sides, and though Sunday's win was awesome, we haven't done it yet.

Happy with the test that we came through.

I was one of those who wondered if we could "step up" when needed and there is no doubt that we did that on Sunday.

What it DID confirm, however, is that league positions mean nothing.

There was nothing between Wigan and Leeds on the day, despite the relative performances during the season.

A little taster of what to expect come the playoffs.

I agree entirely Brett.. Fascinating game, we are getting better at shutting a game out, but Leeds still offer quite a challenge. Like all sport at the top level, mind games.

But had Leeds played and won their two games in hand (Widnes and Wakefield) they would have been second coming into Sunday's game. The two Leeds games this season have both been full-on encounters with very little between the teams, as can be seen by the aggregate score of 34 - 34.

In order to employ the defence Leeds did all game you have to have a set of very fit and well drilled players. Spotting the tactic doesn't mean you have the players able to defend against it and it follows that poorer sides won't be able to.

I am not convinced it would have been that different if Green had been playing which is what Wane has said as I am sure he would have found his options as limited as the half backs on the day did.

Blake Green has been on fire and is a major contributing factor behind Liam Farrell's rise to prominence this year, coupled with the fact his replacement has played only a couple of first team matches and Matty Smith was nowhere near the levels he's played this year due to returning from injury, leads me to believe that wigan would have scored double the number of tries we posted on Sunday....

We can't forget Leeds had Peacock and Delaney missing who are huge player in their pack as is Ablett come to think of him. We did have Green missing who'll make a difference but we'll need to be much better the next time we take them on. Our pack was at full strength and will need to go up a couple of gears when they get those guys back.

I've got to be honest and say Sunday really worried me. I thought we played at a greater intensity then Leeds, with more desire and energy yet they still could have nicked it even with half a pack missing. They're masters at sticking in and making you implode, they pick you off and play on your weaknesses and I thought we looked edgy.

On the plus side our attitude and desire was brilliant and we can play much better, I think we'll need to!

You need to look at the games where he has played and similar defences have been employed successfully and if you do I think they would suggest you are wrong to believe that.

Here are some stats for you. According to Bilko we have scored 140 tries so we are averaging 8.75 tries per game which is pretty amazing. In the games against the better sides i.e. Leeds (twice), Wire and Hudds we scored 10 in total so the average is 2.5 and we never scored more than 3 in any of those games.

In all those games if I recall correctly they all employed the same tactic defensively as Leeds did. Hudds certainly did. We have won one out of four of those games and IMO if we want to improve our chances of silverware we need to be getting past these teams defences more often than we are.

In two of those games against the bigger sides, Sam Tomkins, who has contributed 22 tries and 18 assists in the league this season, wasn't playing. So our average tries drops by about 2 per game when Sam isn't playing. Who knows what effect Green playing would've had on the result on Sunday but just saying well he played in these games and we didn't win is clearly a nonsense opinion when our most potent attacking threat wasn't playing in 2 of them. It's also worth pointing out that the 2 defeats against Hudds and Leeds, plus the draw against Wire were all within the first few games using a brand new half back combination. Against Hudds we were forced in to a major reshuffle in several key positions and still could have nicked it.

People spend too much time looking for things to whinge about. ATEOTD we've dropped points in 3 games in a season where we were meant to have lost so much quality we'd be lucky to be in the top 4. Yes our attack could have been better on Sunday but you have to credit the two excellent defensive efforts from both sides. I think people are so used to seeing blowout scores in SL it becomes disappointing when we're not scoring 10 tries a game!

Not bad for a team with one move a 400+ points difference is it.

I hate some of our fans

having watched the match back, i dont think our attacking options were limited to the point where we need to worry. leeds did pile the pressure on with their defence but we still had plenty of opportunities, like gouldings ball to charnely going to ground when charnley was in the clear, oloughlins offload straight to moon on the try line, sam powells disallowed try and mcilorum losing it (i thought hardaker reefed it out, but then mcilorum was charging in ball first so can understand the decision) over the line. a couple of times we missed opportunities that, were blake green on the field instead of sam powell, we would not have missed. but as others have said, powell was probably the best half on the pitch for the majority of the game. but if that still doesnt work, it seems that spreading the ball earlier and with a deeper line of attack should still work as leeds can only rush so fast as long as we ship the ball nice and quickly. barring that, we need the forwards to ship the ball on from first receiver a la farrell for tomkins' try on sunday. plenty of options, just hope wane has the same idea.

People will always have different opinions. It's to be expected on a forum such as this so you need to get used to it. How can you hate someone you've never met?

Oh get a grip its a figure of speech.

We are top of the league with a points difference that is 300 points better than anyone else and some of our doom mongers are debating our attack! Leeds defended well, its as simple as that. Everyone has played everyone at least once, we are 300+ points better than anyone else, to me, that tells me we are the best attacking team in the league.

We've also conceded the fewest points.

Good post, thank you for posting this as after recent abuse I was unwilling to post the same thing.

Leeds completely shut off our '1 move', rushed on the flanks and that was it, we were forced to play down the middle. I totally agree, there didn't seemed to be anything else going on in attack.

Leeds forced this, made it into an arm wrestle, and before a pen was awarding giving us field possession and positioning we were losing the battle (this can be seen from where we were kicking from on the last tackle compared to Leeds.

Also it had to be noted how we scored our points, often (not always but often) on the back of a Leeds mistake, not even a forced errors (Bailey's push on Logan, Sinfield's silly kick attempt).

I've said it many times before, our structured attack when executed with speed will kill 95% of teams in the SL, BUT when tried against a top team it will become predictable as it did on Sunday.

With a returning Peacock and Abblet, I don't see us beating Leeds when it matters.

We put 50 points on pretty much the same team using a structured attack last season.

And Sam didnt feature in the (GF) play off semi final, Matty Smith was strugglin for fitness on Sunday, the trouble is our forwards were expected to dominate on Sunday and they didn't- thats full credit to Leeds. A bit of fine tuning and Wigan will have a better chance of making both finals. The loss of the half backs earlier on in the season has had less impact than last season, it has also let us blood out the younger guns. I feel a lot more optimistic with this squad compared to last years, and possibly a weakening of the teams this year is clouding my opinion.

I feel that Leeds should be worried, they struggled in attack and failed to score more than Wigan. In defence the leaked more points than the Wigan team.

The end result, Wigan win and our fans whinge about having a close game against one of the closest teams in the league and the team that have had the most success in recent years.

IMO that was much more than a 2 point win. We took on a good team who can turn it on on the big stage and got a result. Leeds looked rattled, giving away silly penaltys while under pressure.
Leeds did manage to limit us on the outside, but we could have been more streetwise in dealing with it.
Mybee someone more clued up on tactics can enlighten me as to why we didn't try and pin their rush defense back with the boot or set plays to make more time for our outside plays.
I haven't read the stats but we seemed to make a few breaks down the middle that required Leeds tackles to stick, Luky for them they did.
I would have been happy with the result before the game and even more afterwards.