Fair play to Wigan but the ref has been worth at least 12 points to them tonight. Try/no try nonsense needs to be scrapped as well.

Man of the match in the stadium the guy who should've been banned. SMH as the kids say.

I’m ok with Wigan winning it to shut the Saints up but some bad ref calls took the gloss of it for me.

How utterly small time can you get. Please Wigan. Win a trophy that we can’t lmao.



Embarassing

Wigan were absolutely superb tonight and did SL proud, like Saints did last year.



Give credit where credit's due and that includes saints last year. Wigan were superb tonight and from a Wire perspective, we're knowwhere near that level.



My hat has been taken off to Wigan tonight.

Only 2012 have our first team been close to that level, and still fell short.



Saints and Wigan have thrown no more money than us, and we’re still miles away.



It really arrows down to on thing. The investment in the academy and pre academy.

When the kids start consistently winning all their competitions, is when we the club looses the monkey.



It’s quite stark when you look at how many of our pack players are Wigan ex-academy.

Currie Wood Nicholson Powell Bullock not sure on Dwyer but certainly pre academy.



In all our 20 years at the HJ, I reckon we have more ex-Wigan academy forwards playing in 2024, than Warrington academy have produced.

Possibly only Cooper and Philbin have broken into the frame, and on best form and fitness, Philbin is still behind all the Wiganers.

The likes of Laithwaite tossed aside for more Wiganers.

Spot on here Duckie.

Bradford must be going in at HT wondering how they've managed to end up behind on the scoreboard.

It was interesting to watch both dressing room celebrations of Warrington after beating Hull reserves and Wigan after winning the WCC. They looked about the same.



As you said we are miles off in terms of sporting pedigree, culture, will to win, on field leadership.

Bradford seem determined to gift wrap a place in the next round of the Challenge Cup to Widnes.

When do the SL teams join the cup this year? 5th or 6th round?

Did the commentator just say the Widnes player "took it on his nuts and not his hands"?

Round 6.

10 mins Cas not even had a set yet. 12-0 down.

This game now is about the level we currently are.

Maybe the secret of success is to have your best coaches at youth & academy levels to identify & produce future quality players. Warrington tend to bin what we produce. instead of nurturing them at the top level ,& are happy to spend over the odds on empty quick fixes that are usually just here for the money.



Our great grandson has started rugby training already at St Helens & he is a month short of his 3rd birthday. Arthur Ford ,star of the future ?

Exactly that. Let Wrench and the other youngsters learn some harsh and valuable lessons this season. We’re winning nothing this season but if we want to close the gap over time then patience with the young players will go a long way towards doing so. Burgess will have the patience, so should we.

I don't think the cup is out of reach with a generous run-in. I can see this being a 2018 type year. Start slow, become defensively sound without offering anything in attack, then finish half-decent. We're nowhere near Top 4 but if we slowly improve we can be mid-table with a good cup run. Hopefully we'll sort our attack before next year.

Wrench has got something that many haven't got & you can't learn ... pace. So worth working on.

I bet he will be going through all sorts of decision making practices to work on his defence.



Reality is however that if he did start losing us games he'd get picked out as a defensive weakness by other teams & he wouldn't be kept in the team for long. The odd mistake would be tolerated but only so much. I think all clubs would be the same. Wigan will have left out lots of youngsters over the years. Wrench is not Harry Smith different players different skills.

As mentioned earlier, we could swap sides for King and Wrench. That would give teams less reason to specifically target one side. It's not just Wrench's pace, it's his footwork and passing. Not many centres who can create tries these days, and certainly no other ones at this club.

Absolutely

There is no substitute for size and pace.

Pack size and backs pace.

That doesn't fix anything though it just moves the problem from one side to another and creates more problems as now king and wrench have to form a defensive partnership with their new defenders, AND a new attacking partnership as well

Ashton may see more (some) ball outside Wrench.

I suspect Ashton is going to have to generate quite a few of his own tries this year but I also think Fitzgibbon will prove quite helpful for him in that respect.