The Reaper wrote:
I actually thought Warrington weren't very good themselves on Saturday. They were pretty poor with the ball, and had poor discipline themselves albeit their defence was good. But on the showings of this week, it's really hard to look past anything else than a KR v Wigan final. You lot seem a cut above at the moment
Agree, I thought the game was a real step down in intensity after watching Friday night. And you'd have to say that Wire have less of an excuse there than Saints in terms of disruption to their squad, although I suppose too they were always likely to be finishing 3rd in any event so maybe that was in the back of their minds.
After Friday I'm now as confident as you can be in knockout games that Wigan will make the final. I wasn't sure about the gas we had left in the tank, but Friday has given me a lot more confidence that we can raise our game for the last three or four games.
Hull KR, I'm not so certain how they'll react in a semi against Wire or maybe a slightly more fully-fit Saints. On the one hand they looked like a much more hardened team ready to compete in these sorts of games compared to the CC semi and SL semi last year. That said, they still got beat and despite what some were saying about the first half and yellow cards, thoroughly deserved to get beat.
So how do they respond to that? Do they take confidence that they're on the right track or still think feel like they're short when the chips are down? Will they think that being very structured and process driven might not be enough when they come up against a team that can do the same, but with a Bevan French, George Williams or Jack Welsby?
They absolutely deserve to be in the final on the evidence of what we've seen so far, but would I back them in a tough looking semi? Hard to say.