Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Sun Jun 09, 2024 8:13 pm  

On Wembley experience I enjoyed most apart from the result,

I think the history etc keep at Wembley and the question of where else for me going to venues sub 70k to make them appear full is crazy.

What we need is a settled date and venue, get it back to being a tradition. Yes GF and magic weekend have diluted things but it's still has some magic for me.

One thing I did find a little funny was how many Wiguners didn't stay to see their team lift the trophy. I always stay to the end but after full time I wanted to be off just didn't expect so many Wiguners on the tube at the same time, if Wire had pulled it off I'd have stayed.

Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Mon Jun 10, 2024 8:16 am  

What was frustrating to watch wasn’t how we struggled to contain Field and French, even though they did terrify us whenever they had the ball. What was most concerning was the difference in ruck speed. Even when we found our feet after 60 minutes or so, they were calmer and more efficient in the ruck. We didn’t find a way to speed our play the ball up often enough. When we did though, we found little pockets of room.

We were desperate to get out in front early. On the back of a sin bin, we go wide to Tai and make a break, get in their territory and instead of keeping the ball and making them pay while being down to 12, we give it to the winger, who was never going to score, and turn it over and end up with a yellow ourselves.

That 10 minutes should have seen us bring the ball back to the middle, work the middle over and over and over and over and roll it in the in goal. We took nothing out of their tank, at all, despite losing a starting prop.

It was frustrating to watch. We really needed a momentum shift off the bench, but the subs came on in the wrong order in my opinion. Musgrove didn’t make it on until the second half, Bullock made some decent yards but costs more in penalties, and Crowther is all effort but didn’t do enough to change the momentum.

Wigan played finals rugby, deserved the win. But still, we stayed in the fight.

Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Mon Jun 10, 2024 8:36 am  

Wires71 wrote:

Good post. Hadn't their try scoring centre just played a handful of 1st team games?

I'm not buying the "12 men have not played in a final" argument. We had GF winners out there and CC final winners. The same team beat St Helens away. The mentality under pressure is still not resolved nor is the ability to change a game when it's falling apart. Was a thoroughly crap day out and the atmosphere was poor. Take nothing away from Wigan who, in truth, were not pushed very hard.

But we have improved on 2023. Lets see how they respond. 4 very winnable games up next then Wigan and Saints.

I think Wire's lack of final experience was a big factor to be honest. Thinking back to Peet's first final against Huddersfield, we had a few players (Bateman, Farrell, Leuluai, Singleton) who had experience of winning big finals but most didn't. We ended up winning, but our performance was less than brilliant and we could've very, very easily lost that game. Had we played a better team than Hudds, we probably would've done.

I think Wire will bounce back pretty well until the end of the season and there's a better than decent chance that the GF will be a rematch. If it is, I'd be amazed if Wire don't turn in a much stronger performance.

One thing that did surprise me a bit was the age of your team though. Obviously it's far away from being an old squad, but I had it in my head that there were more youngsters in there than is actually the case. You'd probably only put Thewlis and Nicholson in that category.

Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Mon Jun 10, 2024 9:01 am  

As a team probably the worst they have played, but only 10 points in it. The only positive to take away from it. Wayward passes in silly areas and too many unforced errors. No player goes out there to make errors, just wasn’t Warringtons day, got no complaints about the result. One thing that I did notice was the crossing that wasn’t pulled by Kendall. But hopefully more finals to come.

Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Mon Jun 10, 2024 9:08 am  

I'm not encouraged by the score line as I think Wigan took the foot off the gas in attack and defended their lead. They were/are miles better than us. I didn't expect us to win but I thought I would see a good contest in a great atmosphere. I got neither, that is what I am most disappointed about. We are on the path to getting better but until we get an on field influence who can steady the ship when the going gets tough we are always going to struggle.

It was our experienced players who :

1. Passed into touch / passed to Ashton 2 foot above his head.
2. Grubber kicked on 2nd tackle when we were in their 10m.
3. Shot out of the line to nail French and miss.
4. Failed to effect any type of kicking game
5. Gave stupid high tackle penalty away leading to Wigan try.


Without naming them, those players have all been in finals before.

Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Mon Jun 10, 2024 11:04 am  

Wires71 wrote:

I'm not encouraged by the score line as I think Wigan took the foot off the gas in attack and defended their lead. They were/are miles better than us. I didn't expect us to win but I thought I would see a good contest in a great atmosphere. I got neither, that is what I am most disappointed about. We are on the path to getting better but until we get an on field influence who can steady the ship when the going gets tough we are always going to struggle.

It was our experienced players who :

1. Passed into touch / passed to Ashton 2 foot above his head.
2. Grubber kicked on 2nd tackle when we were in their 10m.
3. Shot out of the line to nail French and miss.
4. Failed to effect any type of kicking game
5. Gave stupid high tackle penalty away leading to Wigan try.


Without naming them, those players have all been in finals before.

A lot of truth in this mate. Wigan definitely made a conscious decision to defend the lead as could be seen by the substitutions. Taking Mago off at half time and him not returning, especially when he was clearly making inroads into the Wire line, was a statement of intent. Defending a lead is something we've done many times before including last year's Grand Final. This team is very comfortable doing that. It's also worth noting that, although defensively superb, we weren't at our best in attack and probably played the "game in front of us" so to speak.

However, I think Warrington are a better team than they showed on Saturday and will probably offer the biggest threat going forward. Much was made by your guys of being on a journey and I think that's true. Compare and contrast to this time last year. The progress is there for all to see.

Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Mon Jun 10, 2024 11:35 am  

The kicking game was crap and in truth has been all season. It's a weak point for our team.

Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Mon Jun 10, 2024 12:01 pm  

I’m permanently incredulous about how professional rugby league halves (especially those allegedly brilliant at kicking) cannot find open space with a kick. Our long kicking is extremely poor and we don’t have a plan B of even a decent bomb - which again I find very hard to believe a pro rugby player can’t execute 9/10. Sneyd will give us a masterclass on Friday.

Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Mon Jun 10, 2024 12:28 pm  

There are very few good kickers in the game in the UK. I genuinely think out best long distance kick option is Danny Walker. Drinkwater seems to stand really flat but still when kicking, and is quite easy to apply pressure to him. And Williams long kicking game is and always has been limited.

Our best hope, without being flippant, is to not rely on a long kick. Until Ashton dropped that bomb, we were doing ok for field position. He should catch that on his 20 and with only Miski actually chasing with intent, we could have started our set on the 30 line. Even with Wigan’s defence we would be kicking from opposition territory. It’s the errors that killed us, and the penalties.

I’m frustrated why we feel we’re too good for a kick to the corner though. I know late on we did it, but in the first half we had chances to kick to King but didn’t, I think we even got caught on the last rather than opting for it. I know it’s boring, but it’s limited risk. The worst that can happen is a 20m restart, but the kickers just need to drop it short of the line and that problem is solved.

It’s a combination of things for me that go wrong when we lose the monument. The panic was palpable. The pass from Williams on our own line on 38 minutes in tackle one tells that story. If we were in front by 50, he doesn’t play that pass. If we’re in front by 1, he doesn’t play it. So why when we’re down by 10 with 42 minutes to go would you? It’s a desperation to change the game, rather than trusting the process and getting back to the things we had been doing well.

Re: Todays Cup match v Wigan. : Mon Jun 10, 2024 5:20 pm  

Congratulations to Wigan. They deserved the win.
That game reminded me of when we played Catalan at home a couple of months ago. We looked a bit shocked at the start of the game by the opposition line speed and discipline in defence. What has worked against Hull FC, London, Huddersfield etc was not going to work.
In that game against Catalan we had to create a number of repeat sets to wear their defence down. Their three-quarters were a handful returning the ball that meant that Abdul could kick without any pressure and place the ball exactly where he wanted. Wigan did exactly the same. The kick pressure we have seen in most of the games this year was just not quite at the same level and the cycle of Marshall, miski returning the ball and by tackle 3 Wigan were in our half.

Wigan applied a lot of pressure out wide in the knowledge that we were going to try and go round them, we then became frightened to shift the ball in case we got bundled into touch. We just didn't have any answers
Hopefully Gleeson etc will have a better plan for next time.