The defence from both teams was outstanding. If that had been 2 NRL teams people would have been waxing lyrical about how much better the NRL teams are defensively. Because it's 2 Superleague teams it's boring





We talk down our comp too readily. It was a final. If the teams had thrown it around it would have been used as an example of how naïve the Superleague is and how that wouldn't work against well drilled NRL teams. Play it tight and the teams "have no ideas in attack".



This obsession with talking our own game down no matter what is simply bizarre!

Aye, we were decimated if I remember correctly.



On a side note-Adam Keighran has been given a one game ban. I think he can use that in a friendly, so he should be ok for the first league game of 2024.

No Bell, Skerrett or Platt and Dermott really shouldn't have played but managed about 20mins before Hall came on



Mcginty (a pretty small 2nd rower never mind prop) Started prop with Cowie and with no other props available Mick Cassidy did some time there as well



When you consider Brisbane had Lazarus and Andrew Gee starting With another prop and 2 back rowers on the bench its astonishing



Betts, Farrell were great that day and Phil Clarke was Outstanding

Fully agree.



It was all very weird after the Saints v Catalans semi, with people saying it was a dreadful game. I thought it was a fantastic game and occasion. Tight, tense games, where defences are on top are better than teams going try for try IMO.

I just had a look at the past two seasons league tables, Wigan have outscored Saints by over 100 points in both seasons and our points difference has also been better than theirs over the same period.

But the Saints' fans would rather "trust their own eyes" and clearly that means Saints are still the best team and not a declining force at all. Don't forget they'd have butchered both teams on Saturday*!











*With apologies to the less deluded Saints fans.

When was the last time a team didn't score a try in a GF? I thought it might have been us Vs Bradford (one of my worst days as a Wigan fan), but when then we got a try.



Looking on Wiki, it doesn't seem like that's happened before. Quite a few 4 & 6 point scores.

1st team to keep an opponent Tryless in a GF (we were 30 seconds or whatever away from doing it in 2020)

Thanks

It would have been a blow out score if we’d played saints. They were on their last legs against Catalan.



A brilliant side but one whose prime cycle has come to an end.



Our started on Saturday.

Yeah, there is just no way a Saints fan could claim they’d butcher either side on Saturday. Maybe they’d have scraped past either side, who knows but that attack was dealt with pretty comfortably by Catalans the week before and we broke them up a good few times.

Keighran one match ban for the tip tackle, looks like he'll miss a trip to Cumbria in January

You can never say for sure (see Ben Flower final) but, on form alone, I can say for certain that they wouldn't have come close. They were a spent force even without losing the extra players for the final.



Their fans keep going on about "joint top" and "finishing on the same points" but that's a glossing over the reality of what really happened. While we were busy nilling Catalans on their own pitch, running riot putting big scores on teams and restricting the opposition to an average of less than a try a game, they were limping past opponents with abject displays and appalling attack. Even their much vaunted defence, although still good, wasn't on a par with ours.



Their semi final display was a perfect illustration of their season. They had nothing else to offer and the final, had they got there, would have been more of the same.

Gives the young lad eckersley a run out. Really hoping him and Douglas kick on this next season and come into the first team.

Believe Percival would’ve missed the final with injury, so him and Matautia would’ve sat on the sidelines with Batchelor. Guys like Walmsley and Sironen looked half fit as well. They’d have had to bring Hurrell back in, who would’ve faced Wardle in that form, with that footwork.



I’d have been far more nervous for a Saints final but I said in the week leading up that Catalans was the harder fixture because of those circumstances.

More nervous in the sense that the consequences of something going wrong (a la Ben Flower as said earlier) would have been worse but I'd have gone into the final more confident of a win. Catalans, as it turned out, were similarly blunt in attack but we absolutely knew Saints were.

To 'butcher' a team in a GF you have to make it to the GF in the first place



Oh wait.......................

I think there's a touch of artistic licence here.



A lot of my Saints supporting mates said the same as me pre-Catalan. It looked like one game too far and I think even had we sneaked through you would have had too much strike and pace for us particularly as NK alludes to with players missing.



What I was trying to say was that Saturdays game was more of an arm wrestle rather than Wigan being free flowing in attack. Yes they made the odd clean break but French was very quiet, Field in flashes showed his class but it was Wigan's defence that stood out. That type of game would've suited Saints better, set for set, kick to the corners etc. No one that I know is categorically saying we would've won at all.



Our attack has been our Achilles heel all season, most Saints fans will admit that.



However just to add- Wigan's points for has been largely inflated by playing a HKR reserve team at home and a Leeds side that had given up the season.

The HKR one I can go with (Saints wouldn't have come close to putting that many on them mind) but that Leeds team had beaten Hull FC 28-12 the week before and were playing to keep their season alive. Their heads went when the game started to get away from them but that wasn't a team already on their holidays in the first part of the game.

Our points difference was "inflated" by nilling Catalans on their own pitch. Now let me just check how Saints went against Catalans this season....

At the end of the season too. Not preseason.

It's irrelevant, the best team finished top of the league and won the GF. As the great Alex Murphy used to say, 'those that win can laugh and those that don't can please themselves'. I've got a smile as big as the Grand Canyon.

If you all want a laugh, head over to RedVee and read Magic Superbeetle's appraisal of the Saints spine compared to Wigan's on the transfers thread Apparently all are better than their Wigan counterparts apart from Dodd (who will of course be better once he's regained full form as apparently he will do in the off season)





Even Mbye is better than O'Neil! The best one, though, is that Lomax, despite being a virtual no show this season, is better than the league's best player, Bevan French! I must have missed all his good performances this year. To be fair, so did the Man Of Steel panel so at least I'm not in my own.

I just wonder if we'd get any players in that combined team now

The Beetle had his/her heart set on Luke Thompson until it became apparent he was going to Wigan. Funnily enough once that happened Thompson was a huge risk as his injuries had caught up with him. Most comical poster on Redvee and that takes some doing