I have to admit, over the last two months I got to the end of my tether in regards to watching Wigan. Call me a bad fan or whatever you wish, but I was always a bit of a happy clapper. But the dullness of the performances due to the terrible attack were boring me stiff. This year I find it hard to recall a game that I have been to that I actually enjoyed watching, other than maybe the Wakefield game where Lockers was sent off.

However, I think due to the nature of Flower's sending off, not enough has been said about this our team in terms of the Super 8's. Yes I know, we played utterly awful against Widnes, and the Castleford game was bad in the end. But in the semi finals we will be in competition with Warrington, Hull and St Helens, all 3 of which we have beaten in the Super 8's. We finally this season have managed to edge out those teams we are in direct competition with for silverware.

Due to the nature of these wins vs the other 3 out of the top 4, I am confident that we can now rightly or wrongly surprise a few and manage to make it to another Grand Final. Once there, as we know, anything can happen on the day.

Pretty much agree with that - if we can harness some of the second half play from the Warrington game then I think a lot of fans would be much happier, that is what has been missing for most of the season.

It will be very disappointing if we go back into our shells on Friday. If we can keep the momentum going from the wire game then I'll be very confident going into the semis, no matter who and where we play.

Forgive me for being a cynic, but my thoughts were that once BF saw Red, the players decided to ditch "the plan" and play the off-the-cuff RL we all enjoyed so effectively during the final third.
If the sending off had been before the end of the first half, I suspect the half-time team talk would have resulted in a different (same old?) tactics, and probably a different result.

How we play against Catalans will either confirm or refute that

How will it? Are we playing Catalans with 12 men?



Tend to agree with what you say though!

Okay.. I could have phrased it better


13 men against Catalans, open play, offloads, running wide then tactics have changed


13 men against Catalans, one out rugby, flat (dropped) passes = no change

That Matty Smith you all seem to hate didn't do too badly did he? and the Same Sam Tomkins you were all calling fit to burn.

Sam was the one who puzzled me. It was as if he suddenly decided that the situation required him to step up his involvement. Quite an improvement on recent performances. Here's hoping it continues.

I think you need to be on the Wire board getting behind T Smith and the team like the rest of the Wire fans seem to be doing.

I disagree, I don't think we played in a much different style to other games. It's just that we played better.

We still used "the move", the tries that Sam set up the pass for were both from him chiming into the line with "the move". Admittedly, the breakaway try was from a good offload. But the others were just using the move to get the ball to Williams or Tomkins in a dangerous position so we could out our wingers away. It's what we've been trying to do for a while, but it just seemed to work better the other night. In part I believe because Smith was running at the defensive line before passing, rather than passing too early and not committing any defenders to the man with the ball before passing.

Sam seemed to chime into the line at the right time as well, so that he gave himself more space and time on the ball, whilst drawing defenders in before releasing to Charnley or Tierney. His try was also really well taken, he seemed a step quicker than in previous weeks, and it took some strength for him to get over the line and get the ball down.

I've argued before that "the move" is hardly exclusively Wigan property: lots of teams do it all the time, in SL and the NRL. The Roosters in particular, for example, use it a lot. But it's how it's carried out that matters.

If BF hadn't been sent off, then would we have still played the same rugby, would Wire have still thrown the game away? Fair play to the boys for coming back, but the players didn't have anything to lose. Before that, things weren't looking great. Will be interesting to see how they play for the remainder of the season...

To me it was as if the Wigan lads decided to metaphorically stick the V's up at Wayne's coaching book and turned to natural "play what's in front of you" rugby. Keeping the ball alive and running instinctively.

I very much doubt Sam's poor performances had anything to do with Wane's coaching. In previous weeks Sam has not taken on the line like he used to, he was happier to just play like a link and pass the ball on. This week against you he seemed to be much more up for taking on the line, his pace seemed to be coming back a bit, as well as his step.

But I don't believe for one minute that Wane told Tomkins to not use his running game. I think he's just coming back from his injury, and people didn't realise how long it would take for him to recover properly.

You're focusing on one player. I'm talking about the entire team.

With 20 seconds left to go in the 1st half Sam seemed to give me the vibe of "give me the jeffing ball I'm gonna go for it." Now whether or not that was fingers up to the move is anyones guess but the adversity of the second half gave me the same impression, I think they used the standard set plays to get the good territory but the finishing seemed to be off the cuff, comparered to the usual kick to nothing short range kicks, imho

I'm convinced Sam is playing with an injury picked up in the regular season home fixture against Wakey (The last minute win game). He hasn't been as effective since and Wane has mentioned that he's not been training. There were a few rumours at the time that it could have been a season ending injury and in an interview today Wane has said his foot is troubling him.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him missing the four nations for an op at the end of the season.

Reminded me of another classy player tossing the boring play book out of the window when the side was up against it. Trent Barrett, Wigan V Bradford, result Wigan 31, Bradford 30.

The idea that we threw our playbook out of the window after Flower was sent off just isn't true.

Charnley's second try and Tierney's second try were scored off the back of familiar plays - they were just executed very well.

Stop allowing facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory!!

Correct. We simply played with more urgency in all areas of our game which seemed in increase the speed of our play and our accuracy.

I'm hoping that come that semi final we will be at full throttle from minute one.

I still think the biggest difference was we started to offload. It offered a bit of variety and made the defence think a bit more, they had more to worry about than a set play. I think it was the offloads which allowed the set plays to be more effective than they have been this year.

That is true. There were some crackers from Tautai, Frank-Paul and Bateman.