I thought the same at the time. Was right up there with the Korki run.

I kinda wonder what the result would have been had TJ not been available.
Its all if's buts and maybe's of course but I think the loss of our 1st choices hurt us much more than Wigan.
That's not to say either side didn't field a competitive side, make no mistake Wigan came expecting to win regardless.
In isolation away from a million other incidents that could have affected the result, its interesting that a player that should really have been unavailable, made the final passes for both our scores in situations where just being the link in a chain wouldn't have been good enough.

Can't argue with that

Surely there is room for constructive criticism?

My big issue with the moaners is they moan before we've played which annoys the hell out of me. Post-match it's all opinions at least based on something that has actually happened.

Personally, I was delighted with the result but disappointed with elements of our game, ones that keep recurring and are unnecessary.

That said it would be churlish to say I'm not happy this morning, I am.

When Tom Johnstone is on the field I feel anything is possible and when he went off I did fear the worst.Full marks to the lads, they dug deep and fully deserved their win in an error strewn game.Like a few posters have said the transformation in the defence is amazing.Mind you, with the amount of silly, unforced errors we made,it needed to be.A mention for Pitts,who is playing out of his skin, and Battye, who returned to his best form and perhaps should be a starting prop on a regular basis.Really chuffed overall.

Basically agree with what you say, but we've got to accept that we're in the "entertainment" business, and entertaining it was not.
Much as I felt just before retirement; went to work did what I had to do and come home. No feeling of self fulfilment. We don't ever seem to provide two good, entertaining performances on the trot

Super League is just crap to watch on the whole at the minute- especially compared to the NRL. Hardly going to pull in new audiences with some of the displays on show.

I was shouting for that as soon as the 2nd half kicked-off!

Not in the first half and then defend a 1 - 0, like the England football team

Must admit as much as I love watching Wakey watching the NRL is just a completely different world with players over there light years ahead of anything over here. Hate to say it but the polarisation between both competitions seems to be getting wider and wider.

Your wrong in one respect. It’s not the players as proved by the number of British players who make it in the NRL and I reckon it could be more but chances are limited and British players by and large don’t travel well.

No the problem is the coaching and the structure, always has been.

I've been around long enough to enjoy every win against Wigan, whatever the circumstances! That was a young, but very energetic and committed Wigan team who certainly knew how to tackle and tackle hard. Just to add to the half dozen , first choice players missing, Crowther did his MCL in the 9th minute and was struggling to walk, let alone carry on playing for the rest of the first half and Jay Pitts should have been taken off after 10 minutes but carried on to be MOM!

I totally agree about the coaching and structure, players are like the robots and the coaches provide a structure for them to fit in it. There is no flair, no imagination, hardly any moves, it’s run to that blade of grass to get to the next. Players stay on one side of field and may hardly touch it. The game as not changed much over the years, win the forward battle and create space, a simple game made hard. To me most players just stagnate, we produce promising young players but they never kick on to top level, partly by the competition being so poor, partly not being encouraged to better themselves on a daily basis and partly because players don’t do it themselves and just settle for the club way. It’s a complete mess, it’s going no where and my own opinion is the game is getting to a point of no return and irrelevant.

Yes but the majority of those players going to the NRL are from out top 10%.

The amount going to the nrl is and will be shortly become less and less, they don’t need our backs and we’re not producing forwards like graham, Burgess, Ellis anymore. I’d go as far to say our game is completely SXXT

And it goes with out saying that it out top teams were in the Astralian S L playing week in week out they would get pasterd

Any cream will continue to get picked off as they do now. What we’ll also see moving forward is even less quality coming from overseas to here. The NRL intend to expand to 17 team in just two seasons time and then to 18 after that. They will need more players so the real quality that cone now like Sezer, Tetevano, Coote, Reynolds and the likes of Tanginoa for us won’t he coming over here and the overall standard will dip further.

I think we are way behind in many aspects, financially, player pool, coaching.... etc. Of course British players can make it over in the NRL but it seems to becoming less and less, is that a quality reason or a ‘not having another Bateman/Williams episode again’. In the 2017 WC we came within a cats cockhair of winning the WC, I just can’t see that this year at all, especially after witnessing that last night and GB getting pumped by Tonga, NZ and PNG on their last tour. As Mopsey said we just don’t seem to be producing the Ellis’s, Peacocks etc anymore. Happy to be proven wrong as I love nothing more than knocking the ten bells out of the Aussies and co.

NRL is different tactically to our game I wouldn't swap there's for ours I find it quite boring so don't bother watching it

I agree the player pool is smaller but who’s fault is that. There is nothing magical about the Aussie race for want of a better expression.

It all starts at grass roots and schools two areas we totally ignore. Get that right and the rest follows.

Also if you took away the somoans etc it would be a hugely degraded comp. Imagine if France offered such a ready talent pool.

The Aussies simply have people in charge who by and large make it happen.

I don’t think we can ever catch up now, we had a chance in the 90’s but that’s long gone.

Il give you an example cas high get 6 teams to the schools cup final every year, fantastic achievement, but haven’t produced one player for years so what’s going wrong. It’s just so poor

Totally agree. The pool of Polynesian players in the NRL never mind PNG and players of aboriginal heritage is unreal.

Sickening is that really

I think junior rugby is a big part of it , both my lads have played aussie teams on aussie soil and learned that they dont play much on age groups they match more on size so the little guys dont get fed up of been hurt and then its not easy for big lads just yo run over the littlr guys. This is somthing ive seen many a time in junior rugby give the ball to the big guy.they also have schools what are fully focused on rugby like keebra park up in the gold coast area the amount NRL and SL they produced is what you could say is the complete opposite of cas high.

Not that it matters when my youngest went out here in 19 they actually won 3 out of 4 so there is somthing to look to

Its also the strength in depth theyve got the aussies could put a 2nd 3rd and probably 4th team out that would beat all other nations look at fullback dufty been released and he would walk into any sl team at fb and he would be about 10th chouce for aussie number 1 shirt