Wigan Coach Matt Peet on Trinity

“They’re a really good team, I think they’re a team you would pay to watch,”

How much is genuine and how much is a bit of mild gamesmanship I don't know, but you don't see that said about many teams these days.

He's right though, we are worth the entrance fee even if it doesn't always work.

I know Matt very well, he’s a good bloke and is as honest as they come.

He calls it as he sees it and won’t patronise you just for the sake of something to say.

Beware though because he’s an excellent coach, if he sees Wakefield as a top team carrying a genuine threat he will have Wigan ready for anything we could throw at them.

The thing about the matches this season is,we have been playing good football .with T J and Dave not always in the team team .Think we are a lot stronger as a squad than we have been for a few years .This is down to hard work by the coaching staff

To beat Wigan, you must not try too much one up rugby, if you do they are more physical & have more stamina, we were blowing in the 2nd half against Salford, a comment made by trinity tv commentator. To beat them & have enough energy for 80 mins when in possession
You must off load constructively as HKR, demonstrate, that will trouble them & draw them in spending more energy. the old annalgy of
let the ball do most of the work all as per our 1st match against the wires.
Up the trin.

We weren't blowing because we didn't have stamina. We were blowing we didn't have the ball for 10 sets.

What game were you watching, we wernt blowing at all against Salford or any other team!

Our problem against Salford was obvious, poor execution nothing more.

You can’t defend against a team with so much unearned possession. We went out of our way to beat ourselves for about 30 minutes on Sunday and despite what Rowley made and the tge score line suggests Salford in playing terms were never really in it.

I’m actually surprised that someone has actually questioned our fitness, just when I thought I’d heard it all. It’s been the biggest factor in getting our season going imho.

Indeed, we practically spent the whole second half defending, we're gunna be blowing after that. If we give as many penalties away, gift as much possession and basically not do the basics properly against Wigan, fitness will be the least of our issues.

If we can have 50% possession (or better) we have a real chance.
If we serve up a performance like the second half v Salford, Wigan will win the games.

On the comments from Mick Peat, its nice for him to say that but, we have to concentrate on the job in hand.
Clan's comments might be bang on but, I do sense some Jurgen Klopp style gamesmanship. There is no issue with this, as its all part of the game.
It's up to us not to fall in love with ourselves and just get on with beating Wigan.

He's right about paying to watch Trinity though, worth every penny

Fitness was the reason we bet Salford, At this time last season with not getting the ball for first 10 sets in second half we would have been blown away .Know a lot of it was down to us .Looked to me like they did not realise how the wind direction was making it difficult to play towards the North stand

The real compliment paid to us by Wigan was their massive intensity which they maintained throughout the game. This was a really high level performance by a team that expects to challenge in finals every year and knows how to do it. For many years, Wigan haven't been up to that task but the quality and depth of this squad has pushed them back to the top.
Trinity have been out of this level of performance for 60 years yet to our credit we performed at a level that forced Wigan to ramp up their intensity. I'm certain there isn't a team in the comp that would have matched Wigan on Sunday. So, we haven't progressed to the final and it couldn't have been a tougher draw but our heads remained high and the Trinity players who took the field will have learned valuable lessons about playing in big games.
We should be a better team for exposure to and competing in this type of game and by carrying this forward from here we should ensure we remain in the mix for honours over the next few years.

The big difference between us was that we didn't take our chances and they did. I still think they were the better team and would have won but the scoreline should have been tighter.

Over all with three top players out we did ok, it's a learning curve.

One great positive from the game was how Corey Hall and Lewis Murphy played against 2 seasoned internationals and against a Wigan team on top of their game

Hall at 20 and Murphy at 18 could go on to be one of the best centre wing partnerships in the game

I agree. I'm not sure how far Murphy will go but he's certainly got talent.
Hall has absolutely no end to where he can go.

Hall is the most natural raw Centre talent I have seen since Paul Newlove.

He's a bit to go but his natural ability and his composure shine through.

I think Murphy is a natural athlete again and has the composure but he's not the natural IMO that Hall is or TJ was at that age. He will have to work at his game but if he does he will do very well indeed. Also, TBF if it was a big step up for Hall it was a huge one for Murphy.

Well done to them both.

I think that the young lad Newman at Leeds could go a very long way too, to be fair, if he can get over the injuries.

Paul Newlove, that's going back a bit. Trouble is I remember his dad, John, playing for Feath and Hull

Yep it was great to see them against Warrington and then Wigan neither looked out of place and will only get better. Hall looks special and Murphy is doing himself no harm I would like to see him on a distant break to see his pace

I thought of the old Featherstone Baldies front row the other night watching Cas. Many of Cas's forwards are baldies by choice rather than age I admit though.

I agree I think Corey Hall is at the moment behind the likes of Farnworth (who I am very excited about as an England fan) and Newman.

The latter 2 though are 3 years older and have had much more exposure to a higher level of rugby than Hall who it is easy to forget is still in reality in his first year of SL.

He has a lot of potential and I see no reason why he shouldn’t be pushing very hard for a starting berth at the World Cup following this one as he has all the tools to do it, he just needs to keep working hard and getting games under his belt.

I’ve always been a country over club man as I think we need a strong international game for rugby league to thrive and it’s refreshing to see quality outside backs starting to push through the development systems in numbers.

If we could get some more quality and depth in and around the halves and 9 we won’t be far off in a few years time….big IF though.

I think we’re starting to see some quality come through in the halves.
Olly Russell at Huddersfield hasn’t looked out of place this year
Rowan Miles has stepped up when asked at Hull KR
Truman has done well at Castleford
There’s still loads to come from Harry Smith at Wigan
The headliners though are
Mikey Lewis at HKR
Lewis Dodd at Sts
Will Price at Huddersfield

That’s more home grown halves playing at SL level than we’ve produced in the last 20 years