Wigan v Saints - Match Reaction!

[nathan_rugby]

I thought that our attacking line was aweful.

Didnt see it often go through hands with dummy runners. So many times that happened, saints didnt even need to slide because they wasnt compact, it was obvious what was happening.

Sam tomkins has been playin very flat and often has to run sideways. Would help if he was deaper and had a dummy runner.


Thought phelps did great at 3rd reciever. Set up the ainscough try with a crackin pass. A pass which richards probably wouldnt have give. Looked better than richards in attack in my opinion. Filled in at 3rd reciever execellently.


Thought fielden had an aweful game. Didnt notice him much in attack bar 1 good run. Was lazy at marker aswell.

[MrDave]

I'm not going to get carried away, so it wasn't 75-0 but it still goes down as a loss and played 9 lost 6 is a poor record by anyone's account.

Wigan did have a few chances to win the game but basic mistakes let the side down but even so I think if Wigan had score another try in the first half Saints would have stepped it up a gear.

St Helens never really got out of second gear while Wigan through the whole gear box at St Helens. Mick Potter had to get his side through a match against Leeds then Wigan and then Hull on the Monday and he did well tonight his side won without wasting too much effort and will benefit for the trip against Hull.

Wigan saved a bit of dignity tonight and it was good to see the fans get behind the team but Wigan need to kick on now and start winning some more matches. Catalans and Celtics are must win games before Wigan have to player St Helens again.

[fred_flintstone]

Much improved, lets just hope they kick-on from here. Got to say, and it sticks in my throat, Saints goal-line defence was very good.

Only real player to cause concern for me was Fielden; he just seems to be going throught the motions, I fear we're stuck until his contract is up.

[Matthew]

I am just watching the tape back now, and Thaler is repeatedly shouting things like, "stand up", and "play the ball" and "clear the ruck", and "movement" and to be fair, the players are responding to him.

But they don't; stains make sure that they have an extra man in the tackle so that one of them doesn't have to roll away.

Had Thaler pulled his whistle out of his ar$e then we might have got the fast play of the ball. It annoys the hell out of me that morons like Stevo say that only kfc and roby can get a fast play of the ball - the reason that stains get it and their opponents don't is because stains lie on and the ref doesn't do anything about it.

[cherrywarrior]

Wello was shocking tonight, i dont think they watch the same match!

[R Douglas]

I thought Thaler was rubbish. It wasn't one flop; it was about a dozen. As per usual, stains were allowed as long as they liked to clear the ruck. The markers rarely stood square and he missed countless high shots including an elbow to the face from puletua (sic - the new Samoan). He kept a very skinny ten metres when stains were defending. Hock was still moving when he reached forwards - so I don't really see how it could be a double movement (I know that's the video ref's fault).

We were our own worst enemy; we had more than enough chances to score enough points to put the game beyond stains by half time.

That said, there were a load of positives too. Ainscough showed that he really does belong at this level. Phelps played very well for someone who hasn't played first team rugby in nearly two months. Lockers made more yards than I can remember seeing him make in three seasons. Our defence was (for the most part) robust and we put in some nice hits - including the beauty at the end on the slug. It was just nice to see players breaking the line; I thought that Leuleui looked particularly dangerous - just a pity he didn't offload when he broke the line in centre field.

It could be said that stains were fatigued from last weeks efforts against Leeds; however I thought we looked much more dangerous against them than Leeds did.

If we played like that every week we would be winning a lot more games than we are losing.

I am just watching the tape back now, and Thaler is repeatedly shouting things like, "stand up", and "play the ball" and "clear the ruck", and "movement" and to be fair, the players are responding to him.

I agree with you on Ainscough. He's developing and learning things with every game he plays in and his confidence is growing and it is good to see.

If he say "James" once more I'd seriously believe he was related to him.

1) Who calls the Ginger Scouser James
and
2) As good as he is, why does he command such respect from refs.

Is it me or are the commentators and the d@#k head completely biased towards Saints?

[warriorwal]

Havent posted for ages just seem to read and watch the postings on here amazing the fans on here can be so fickle unfortunatley/we are quite good at moaning which i despise but do bloody well myself lol/we are /I am/ more used to being beaten nowadays which i / we hate. but that is sport . gone are the days of wigan dominance unfortunatley!
I am wigan through and through sooooo much and i live in east yorkshire taking soo much shite from black and shite i mean white lol hkr are fine they are mostly good guys and have some good friends that are hkr.But tonight was about putting up a good performance which we all know we did we can slag off stu fielden we can slag off piggy for not being that fit we can call phelps for the knock on but live with it this is sport full on hard as it can get . we all love it and i love my team as tough as it gets sometimes .
Sat i have got to start again as i said i live in east yorks so this makes life so hard HULL CITY fan oh yer not the best season either but wat the hell lets love our teams and just enjoy sport it hurts soooooooooo bloooody much but we would never swap it in our lives ps. talked to a FC fan today given his pass away for tomorrow i say sad man ur team is ur team win /lose/or draw !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PS IWAS QUITE PISSED WHEN I WROTE THIS I MEAN WAT I SAY JUST MAYBE COULD OF PUT IT BETTER WAHEY

[GeoffN]

Lets try and keep the number of match threads down to a sensible amount, please...?

[Mr Stu]

proud of supporting the warriors tonight, we got stuck in with high intesity. in the end the silly mistakes and not being quite clinical cost us. if we perform like that for he rest of the season we will be alright.

was worried when richards wasnt playing but phelps did well as did most of the team, lockers lead by example, roberts best game tonight, coley played well especially early on. halfbacks did well and feka and hock looked very dangerous,

ainscough did superb to get his tries and carmont played well but i think he will miss catalans with the knee injury, as for gleeson playered alright but cant possibly expect to fit in straight away, i know for a fact that he was bricing it before the game but did alright.

fielden was disappointing but not terrible like he has been but has a long way to go to be earning his crust. with bailey, hanson, mcilurum piggy and presscot were solid

saints were below par but still ableto grind out a win, which is something we need to win as we have lost a lot of games but not a great deal of points.

[DaveO]

Fantastic effort from us tonight, some real positives to take away from the game.

Phelps was brilliant as was Ainscough.And Tomkins had Paulatua in his back pocket tonight.

But despite the effort from the players WE STILL LOST TO SAINTS and that for me is unacceptable.

Happily clapping away is all well and good but we lost to Saints again, and the reason is plain and clear. Its not the players its the way Wigan attack(Nobles fault) and the defensive pattern near the try line (Nobles fault).

We couldent break there defense down consisting of Frodsham,Eastmond,Ashurst and Meli who are probably the wost defensive players on the pitch.

And for Cunningham to score again from a play of the ball come on how many times do we have to see it??

Im acknowledgeing the fact the lads put superb effort in against a better drilled side and im not knocking them well with the exeption of Fielden who was awful.

Well done lads. :eusa2: :eusa2:

This is pretty much my view the effort from the lads is being hamstrung by poor organisation. On attack they were all stood still at times watching the man with the ball.

Despite this it was still a very close game and I think you can actually pinpoint which incidents cost us the game it was that close.

1. The one you mention with Cunningham close to the line. He does this every flaming week and yet we fell for it. Of course we would not have had to had three players not let the ball bounce into touch.

2. Then we had TL make his break with I think Tomkins outside him one man to beat and he doesn't pass. Criminal mistake from a half back. ( also agree with Geoff he long range kicking was not up to much. Tomkins found gaps and turned the defence TL kicked it down the throat of the wingers repeatedly). Risking the wrath of the positive fans I think his performance tonight showed why NZ moved him out of the no 7 slot. He just doesn't quite cut it at top leval as a 7.

3. & 4. When they scored the two quick tries they upped the pace and we fell into our defensive problem of standing off and letting a team run at us. KFC did the damage again for one of the tries and we let Gidley have a virtually unopposed run at the line while the players watched his little skip.

That is IMO all the difference there was in terms of win or lose. Unfortunately because we failed to make the territorial advantage count those few mistakes cost us the match.

That said I have seen tries like the Hock try given and Thaler clearly does not know the rule on "not square". I know the refs have been told to keep the game flowing this year but that was a joke.

So you can not fault the effort of the players at all but ultimately as you say we lost and I think we can see why. If that effort was channelled into a more organised attack and defence we would be up there with Leeds and Saints.

The players deserved the applause they got at the end but I wonder how we are going to break out of the bad habits both in attack and defence.

Dave