Wigan squad for Challenge Cup Final

[Southern Softy]

Phew! Which pretty much sums up my feelings after yesterday.
Best moment the feeling of joy at about 2.20 when the voice-over shouter announced the officials with LIAM MOORE as the referee.
Worst moment - when Child came out to 'warm up' before the match.
Doh!
At least he was incompetent for both sides with his offside decisions being completely random. He tells the players where to stand to be 10 yards back and then stands in front of them so he can't see where they are. Byrne, until the last 5 minutes, spent the entire match offside.
He also got the Smithies high shot right. Penalty but nothing more although he had to be told by someone (Kendall?) that it was a foul.
We didn't turn up for 20 minutes then dominated (Smithies didn't get enough credit for Smith's try), then lost concentration, came out flying for the second half, lost concentration again and then Harry Smith was the first man to work out how to kick on ultra-short grass and Marshall did brilliantly to gather and not knock on.
It was the weirdest feeling at the end. I never though we'd win until we did.
Special thanks to Huddersfield for bombing 3 certain tries in the first half and to Lolohea for his kicking!
Thought Innes Senior was Huddersfield's best player and the Lance Todd should have gone to Bevan French.
Fair play to the Giants fans who stuck around to applaud their team at the end and really enjoyed their day. That excludes the three with weak bladders who managed to stand in front of me on the way to the bog at every crucial moment.
I wouldn't have complained if we'd lost but I'm delighted for everyone that we won.
Didn't care for the stadium. Grey, faceless and designed to extract the maximum amount of cash from anyone who ventured inside. Don't know what the crowd was but I'd be surprised if there were 40,000 and a lot of seats were freebies.
As for Mago? What was the point. Not seen until 54 minutes and did nothing.
Still, if we can win when not playing well, there's a lot more to come. Could really galvanise our season.

[w.thomas]

Yes I admit hudds outplayed us in large parts and won the battle down the middle. Already Sick of hearing the better team lost though! The best team is the one that wins, sports about winning, end of story. How many finals are won on fine margins? Plenty. Up the cherry and white!

[CheshireWarrior]

My baldy head is burnt to a crisp! Was sat low down, central, East Stand and stone me the hasn't half given me a belting!

As for those who say the giants have won nothing, I don't want to appear pedantic, but winning the LLS in 2013 was something (despite the fact its like winning the community shield in football I suppose).

You don't finish top of the league by luck and some SL clubs may never win this or take years to claim a LLS. Something to hold onto in recent years for them.

[CheshireWarrior]

Nice result for Leigh too! I expected a comfortable Fev win, wanted Leigh to won for Lam!

[josie andrews]

51, 628 attendance

[EDINBURGH-WARRIOR]

WHL must hold 100k then . Never in a million years was there 51k there if it only holds 63k

EW

[Southern Softy]

I wouldn't dare disagree with you Josie but it certainly didn't look anywhere near that figure from sitting inside the ground. Perhaps there were lots up aloft hidden by the giant cockerel!

[Exiled Wiganer]

I assume a lot of people were there for the first game and didn’t stick around.
We must have taken 4 times as many fans as the Giants.
Anyone who missed out because they weren’t sure about what the stadium would be like should go if we go back there. It’s brilliant.

[Big Steve]

Lots of Leigh fans went after their game and prob the same for Feb. Which was a shame as it left visible gaps in obvious places behind the posts.

Shame there was a large section in the South stand which only went on sale very late as it again made a very visible space behind the sticks that could easily have been filled.

100% better stadium than Wembley.

[Southern Softy]

One last bit. A penny for Zak Hardaker's thoughts...............................