Pathetic!! What a team (squad) of bottlers!!!!!

[DaveO]

There was a time when it was THE trophy everyone wanted to win because it confirmed the BEST team for the season. The CC was traditionally important for its Wembley connection. The Championship was little more than an additional trophy to extend the season!

Very true and what kind of amazes me is that while we have in effect the same three competitions it has become accepted that the easiest one to win decides the "best" team.

If anyone doesn't believe me the Premiership/GF is easier go back and look at Leeds progression to the GF last year. Their fixtures were not as hard as a side who got drawn away all the way to the CC final for example.

Ask any football fan what they'd rather win - FA Cup or Championship!

The climax to last seasons footy says it all on that score.

Winning the league should always be pinnacle, or at least on level terms with winning a major cup competition. I wouldn't mind if winning the league and winning the Challenge Cup were viewed as equally prestigious.

As I grew up with the game I always thought they were though I really knew the players viewed the league as the pinnacle.

What there shouldn't be is a 27 round qualifying tournament that fans buy their season ticket for which ultimately means little and simply provides placings for another tournament that fans have to shell out extra for which is seen as the only thing that actually has some meaning.

Now THAT is THE point. It's not the money thing where fans have to shell out for the extras for me though. It's the fact that the play-offs (especially the current format) devalue the league to the extent they do.

I pay a lot of money for two season tickets for an apparently worthless competition that means next to nothing.

What the F*** should I do that?

Personally I have tended to argue that despite the fact someone chose to simply label the old Premiership as the permier competition you have to be a bit mad to not give a toss about the league given that is what you shell your season ticket cash out for. You spend far more time watching the league games than any other competition.

So unless you are am arm-chair supporter who never goes to games you must want to see your team win the league games or it is going to be a pretty miserable way to spend a few hundred quid.

Unfortunately if we all decided finishing first was the most important achievement it wouldn't change anything. The clubs and players would still see the Grand Final as the most important goal, Sky would still do everything to ensure the Grand Final was the big prize and make everyone forget about the 27 qualifying rounds.

Well something had to happen to change it to the way it is so maybe one day it can be changed back. Even Sky must see if the league games become poorly supported or dismissed as irrelevant then eventually it will decline as something worth watching on TV

[DaveO]

With you 100%. I was furious with Wane's approach to the Widnes game. As I said in another post if you want to win the league as Wane says he does you make sure you win against teams like Widnes early in the season in case you ned the points in the bank later on if there are problems..

No player needed a rest in that game and so one or two youngsters given a run was all he needed to do. I also really don"t like his attitude about allowing Wigan players on loan to other clubs to play against us. If he can weaken the opposition by depriving them of a player then that is what you do. It is not a gentlemans club where he needs to try and set himself as some sort or moral pedestal. If anything it is a bit arrogant.

If we had won that game we could have given this one up given the injury situation and rested a clearly unfit Finch and other players. NOW is the time some players need a rest and points in the bank allows that. Instead he will have to aim to win every game and do as he did today. We wil go into the playoffs knackered.

Quite a few of the players who missed out against Widnes ended up missing subsequent games. There was little doubt that quite a few, if not all of them were carrying knocks. Certainly O'Loughlin, Farrell, Richards and Leuluai were. I can't recall which other players were rested but those 4 were definitely carrying injuries.

So yes, players did need resting, either for that game or for subsequent games. Wane maybe should have taken a risk on playing one or two of the established players and rested them later but we should have won that game easily. The players seriously let themselves down with their performance in that game.

Wane would never have given this game up, he'd always have risked players for this game. That's just the way he is, so a win in the Widnes game isn't likely to have made any difference. That's also ignoring the fact that had we beaten Widnes then Tony Smith may have chosen not to rest a few players in one of the games Wire slipped up in and they could easily have closed that gap.

Wrong, its biting us in the arse as we speak, we keep our own house in order and not bother about the rest. The players left out in that game certainly cant have been more injured than what Finch and Prescott were tonight yet they were risked because of the nature of the game and quality of opposition. Why wasnt this the case for the Widnes game? Why did we let Marsh play against us? its no excuse, we sould have won the game with the best possible players we could field and a few of the young lads on the bench to interchange with the players that had the slight knocks.

Exactly right God.

[Owd Codger]

We lost because against the good teams like Leeds and Warrington, our forwards with the exception of Hock and Mcllorum are not aggressive enough, plus we play the same way every game and have no plan B against the better teams with good packs. I regret having to say this but Wane is a good coach at bringing young players to a higher level but where tactics or plan B is concerned he leaves a lot to be desired. For that reason, I think we need a good Australian Coach like we had with Maguire.

[Johnone]

It makes little difference whether you have plan A,B, or C, if you make errors on the scale that Wigan have made them especially against oppostion of the quality of Warrington,This loses momentum in fact it passes momentum to the opposition. In order to beat the best teams all aspects of your game need to be at 100%.We were far from that either agaist Warrington or Leeds (although against the latter we would still have won with a different Ref). What needs addressing is the error count. Apart from about 4-5 games in the middle of the season when we played as good as Rl as i have seen in my long life (by any team), The error count is far to great, & of course the best teams will punish you. To compound the mistakes the majority of them take place in our own quarter,from which we go on to concede points

[Kittwazzer]

It makes little difference whether you have plan A,B, or C, if you make errors on the scale that Wigan have made them especially against oppostion of the quality of Warrington,This loses momentum in fact it passes momentum to the opposition. In order to beat the best teams all aspects of your game need to be at 100%.We were far from that either agaist Warrington or Leeds (although against the latter we would still have won with a different Ref). What needs addressing is the error count. Apart from about 4-5 games in the middle of the season when we played as good as Rl as i have seen in my long life (by any team), The error count is far to great, & of course the best teams will punish you. To compound the mistakes the majority of them take place in our own quarter,from which we go on to concede points

Correct. No point in a "Plan B” if we can't get Plan A right!

[medlocke]

We hit form too early in the season for me, happend to Wire last season. Leeds seem to be mediocre n hit form at the right time

and this is why the play offs and the top 8 are a joke, why should any team give there all for a full season when they can play shite for half the season and still be in with a shout from 5th, RFL need to change the crack, make it a top 3, who ever finishes top of the league wins the hub cap and goes straight into the final, 2nd plays 3rd and the winner proceeds to the final, it not only gives all clubs the incentive to finish top but also to get within the top 3, therefore we would see a more intense action packed season imo, bring back relegation and then you got actio at both ends of the table

[Kittwazzer]

2 flaws in that Meds. A playoff involving only 3 teams wouldn't have enough matches to satisfy Sky/RFL. And teams would switch off very early in the season once they realised a top 3 spot was out of reach, maybe putting everything into the CC.

[BriH]

It makes little difference whether you have plan A,B, or C, if you make errors on the scale that Wigan have made them especially against oppostion of the quality of Warrington,This loses momentum in fact it passes momentum to the opposition. In order to beat the best teams all aspects of your game need to be at 100%.We were far from that either agaist Warrington or Leeds (although against the latter we would still have won with a different Ref). What needs addressing is the error count. Apart from about 4-5 games in the middle of the season when we played as good as Rl as i have seen in my long life (by any team), The error count is far to great, & of course the best teams will punish you. To compound the mistakes the majority of them take place in our own quarter,from which we go on to concede points

Absolutely bang on: errors are giving the opposition possession and/or territory, which invariably leads to points being scored. This makes for anxiety which causes further errors and so it goes on.
It's the one aspect of our game that I get really angry about - giving the opposition 'free' points.
I couldn't be a Coach: I would be forever doing a Darryl van der Welde!

[medlocke]

2 flaws in that Meds. A playoff involving only 3 teams wouldn't have enough matches to satisfy Sky/RFL. And teams would switch off very early in the season once they realised a top 3 spot was out of reach, maybe putting everything into the CC.

you could be right KW but i still think finishing 1st should guarantee a place in the final, you've been the best team all year so why should you be able to be knocked out of the play offs by a lesser team, maybe a top 8 with 2nd place getting a buy for the first round of the playoffs, so you would have 3 games round 1 with 3 times going through to round 2 with 2nd place joining, giving 2 games, round 3 1 game then the final, but then i suppose the top team wouldn't want to sit around for 3 weeks without a game, it takes some thinking about, but something needs doing to make teams perform to their best ability's every week unlike Leeds

[Kittwazzer]

Meds. I think we need to start with 12 teams in the league and a 6 team playoff. As you say, top team straight to GF. The remaining 5 teams could include CC winner if they aren't in top 5. 2nd placed team get a 1st round bye and then slug it out with the remainder?