Exiled Wiganer
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Posts posted by Exiled Wiganer
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I have decided not to delete my Everton Sold Out email. In April! Hats off to Moran and the team.
Next step: do what they have done so far, and Wembley will be bigger than big.
I think we will beat the British record aggregate this time, with 70 something k on. With a fair wind the all time Ashes record could go.
I have a pet peev which is that we are constantly portrayed as a “small” sport, confined to the north - so much so that we even believe our own press. We watch the greatest game and our reach, and our audience is the equal and more of any sport after football, cricket and the fatties. If one byproduct of the imminent massive crowds is to make us all believe in ourselves more then we could be feeling the benefits for decades to come.
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49 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:
So Lebanon not much different from other contrived teams that were in previous World Cups?
Yes they are very different indeed. Go to Beirut and work it out for yourself.
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On 28/10/2024 at 08:48, Damien said:
As I said on the other thread Spurs, Elland Road and Bolton were meant to be the venues in 2020.
If we swapped out Bolton for Evertons new stadium, which will be open then, or the Etihad and it would be perfect.
Pretty close, Damien…
It’s fascinating to go back to the start of this thread. If you had told the posters then where we are today, they’d have been a pretty happy lot!
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41 minutes ago, The Rocket said:
Congratulations on the Test match ticket sales but I can assure you there`s not much moaning going on over here today, it appears that Good Friday`s Bulldogs/Souths match is set to break the all-time regular season crowd figure of 59 700 with estimates being made, given bays that are being released now at Accor, that suggest 70 000 is definitely doable. Earlier tonight some of the top bays have been thrown open with $10 seats in what some are seeing as the Dogs going for an 80 00 sell-out.
Congratulations again and great news for League in both hemispheres.
I was at that game 10 years ago. They should feel free to use that in their marketing.
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These are great days.
One minor gripe - the England coach was on TV wearing a Wigan top. Ffs, surely he must have England kit he can wear. Attention to detail will be everything.
Wembley will be fine. The south remembers. Let’s now get some merchandise out there - we have 10s of thousands of willing buyers.
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On 09/04/2025 at 19:55, OMEGA said:
That’s a rather obtuse and slanted way to view my post!
of course it was about the optimism surrounding Wakefield Trinity which has seen the attendance sky rocket, surely a good thing rather than something to sneer at.
As for reducing capacity to get sell out crowds, we’ve been steadily improving the stadium and increasing the capacity so I’m not sure where you’re getting that idea from. But hey ho, it’s a Rugby League forum it wouldn’t be a normal discussion if someone wasn’t pouring scorn on another club or looking for the negatives.
Every silver lining has a cloud!
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1 hour ago, Pulga said:
I think I'm as likely to be called up to the Kangaroos as French is.
Really? I could certainly see it happening if they had a couple of injuries to their 6s. Time will tell. Or not.
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16 hours ago, Click said:
Not sure why you would go to some random sound bites like "utter woke nonsense" no one has mentioned "woke" not sure why you would do it now.
This isn't twitter, not sure why you're being so offended at this while lamenting the fact that others may be offended.
Oh yeah, it's because it's Hull KR and not another club.
It’s that “free speech” quirk - when people mean they and only they should be allowed to say what they like, and often especially if that thing is untrue. Isn’t there a word for how a word changes (or the expression “free speech”) its meaning to be the opposite?
(Found it - it’s a contranym or Janus word: sort of - the same term can mean the opposite: eg fast. Thanks google!)
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1 hour ago, StandOffHalf said:
My brother was watching a rugby union quarter-final (Leinster vs Glasgow) while I was watching this game. Both kicked off at 8pm; the RU game was over five minutes before the RL one. So, there's something in what you say...
Did you wake him up, or just put a blanket over him?
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One thing that struck me during the game last night was how fantastically coached both sides are. Both coaches clearly improve the level of the players they have at their disposal. There were very few bought in superstars, but a lot who are now world class. If we had 12 Peters and Peets we’d be very well set indeed.
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2 minutes ago, Damien said:
Really poor from the Hull KR commentator:
I really like in house commentaries for that very reason. I think it is exactly what you want from your in house commentators. Bilko should take note.
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With each passing week, Walters is looking better and better as a prop. I know we bought him as a second row, having lost McDonnell, Nicholson, KPP, Smithies and Isa in a relatively short period, but I think we need to look again. If Havard ever gets back to his best, and when Thompson is back, those 3 could be very dangerous indeed. On this trajectory, Walters may even be an outside bet for the Ashes.
Cracking game, glorious atmosphere, missing Lewis and post cup game meant HKR dipped enough that even home advantage couldn’t compensate. I expect we will see another couple of cracking matches between us before this year’s race is run.
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43 minutes ago, Worzel said:
Anyone who’s ever been to an away game at the Brick, and I’ve been to plenty, knows that the idea that Hull KR fans are uniquely one-eyed is b######
Anyone from a fanbase who have so little class that when following the consistently best team in the league make a chant that just says “you’re s###” endlessly to opposition fans whilst beating them has no place criticising Rovers’ supporters.
Wigan deserved to win last night, Rovers missed 55 tackles in a classic post-Derby performance against a team with a two week break. It was suicidal. But I’m very happy to stand up and defend the culture of our fanbase, the hard core 2,000 of which were there for a 0-1 defeat by Barrow in a derelict stadium with a smaller pitch and more detritus around it than Odsal that I doubt many other clubs would have endured at that scale.
We’ve earned how much we’re enjoying this moment, and I think most people appreciate the atmosphere at Craven Park. Last night was a brilliant event, that this league needs far more of.
So, to summarise:
- Wigan fans are awful
- HKR fans are brilliant
- HKR lost because they were tired and Wigan had been putting their feet up
And you included the words “so little class”. How apt.
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13 minutes ago, WN83 said:
Great to hear Carney saying the RFL expect the sold out signs to go up for Everton on Monday and that Wembley is selling at a rate not seen for a London international in decades (maybe that's the sort of creativity I mentioned they should use earlier in the week).
There looks to be such a buzz around the series. It's massively exciting.
I know it would be ace to have daily updates, but, stepping back for a moment, it’s easy to forget that the games are over 6 months away. We sell 50k plus tickets in a week for the Grand Final. What we are seeing is mind blowing for our game…
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3 hours ago, Just Browny said:
Can't keep up with my conspiracy theories here. If the refs are bent against Wigan this year, but Jack Smith is bent towards Wigan, hopefully it evens itself out?
Wouldn’t it just snap?
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7 hours ago, RigbyLuger said:
Which will be blamed on IMG/RFL of course!
I will apportion some (but only some) blame, yes. Unless and until someone shows me the piece of advice from the experts which states “you should bear in mind that your decision means a club could stay in SL forever even if it can’t afford to pay its players.” Ill advised decisions are often a result of people making decisions without being advised of the consequences.
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3 hours ago, gingerjon said:
Take it up with the RFL chair.
The old or the new one?
I was looking for clarification that this hand to mouth devaluing of the competition at the point at which it most needs to show that it’s got its act together could continue seemingly indefinitely. And it sounds like the answer is yes.-
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Am I right that they could be awarded a place in SL next year under the IMG system even without substantial guarantees that there will be investment in the club? I suspect I may be alone on here in thinking that is insanity.
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There is so little between the teams overall that the details will count a lot. Wigan will massively miss their 2 best props (by a distance), and with home advantage HKR will almost certainly prevail, Lewis or no Lewis. Indeed, they can make themselves odds on to win the LLS by winning, leaving Wigan a lot of months simply to concentrate on getting into the play offs. One day you’re the hammer…
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1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:
As I have said many times on here, Referees born in a town that has a pro RL club, most probably supported the team as a youngster, and come through the towns RL Referees Society, should not be officiating in games that their towns team is involved in, we have 9 full time Referees on the panel and 6 matches per week.
Go back to how it used to be when it was not allowed, I remember two high profile refs the Connolly Brothers from Wigan who were overlooked for Wembley finals because their towns team was continually there.
Hanley wasn’t born in Wigan.
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19 hours ago, bobbruce said:
A house a car and holidays on the owners yacht would/should all be added onto the players salary as far as the salary cap goes.
If they are a marquee player it wouldn’t make a difference either way. Err, missed that HGAG got there ahead of me…
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1 hour ago, ELBOWSEYE said:
I like watching him(not against Warrington)
But the general consensus is that ours is an inferior competition and some players will thrive better in SL because it's not a week by week intensive competition, there are to many easy games. Lewis Dodd was a young half at the time playing well with an impressive Saints side, since signing he has lost form and is nowhere near a start in the NRL and will follow lots of backs who went over and return within two years.
This being a thread about Ashes squad predictions, my take is not that the NRL does not have great strength in depth, as I don’t think anyone is arguing against that. Nor is it that even with 12 teams, SL’s standard is such that there are too many easy games. These 2 points may flow directly from the respective salary caps. Like you, I am unstinting in my admiration for how the NRL and our game has conquered the entire region. My point is a different one: SL has many superb players, world class players, and the cream of them are every bit as good as the vast majority of the best NRL players. We see this not just in WCC games - which you can well dismiss with contempt, but which I believe are competitive and a clear demonstration that the top SL clubs hold their own (even when games are played in Oz), and in every international where SL combinations come up against NRLers.
I have seen a lot of league in my time, and have seen more than enough to appreciate that French is by any measure, world class. He is better than many of the players who will run the Kangaroos close this autumn, and who have beaten Tonga and Samoa over the last 2 years. You might argue that the style of British play, and that we tend to have smaller players, means that a player like Field thrives over here when he would be picked up and thrown over the stand in the NRL. I would agree with that, but I would counter it by saying we have a very exciting style of play over here, with a better balance than many defence defined NRL clubs. And French would thrive if he went back to the right environment and good enough coaching in the NRL.
As to absolute quality, I fear there remains a huge gap between my view that our top players are among the best in the world and yours. But an opinion is just an opinion when all is said and done.
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12 hours ago, OMEGA said:
What’s that got to do with the price of cabbages?
You were calling out sold out crowds as if Trinity are bringing us Bullmania mark 2. When you only need 8k - considerably less than the SL average - to do so. If your point is that they are trending upwards then that is of course a good thing. It struck me as worth highlighting coming as it did so close to a discussion around 10k being a “disappointment” for a Cup game.
It might be that the direction of travel is now to shrink capacities so that full house signs go up, but Wire getting stick for having a crowd which would have too big for Wilderspool back in the day seems crazy to me.
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18 minutes ago, StandOffHalf said:
Cleary raving about French at the Grand Final calling him a freak says a lot about the respect one elite player has for another.
Going over the last few years, I think it is almost impossible to argue that Bevan French isn't in the very top bracket of players in the world.
Many Aussies share that view. I am told that the consensus is that he was too high maintenance a character when he was younger, and that there is a genuine feeling of awe at his development. He is testimony to the brilliance of Peet’s coaching, turning him into a stand off so good he was man of the match in the 3 “finals” we played last year. Elbow has the worst case of NRL=Goditis I have read on here for a long time. The cure is to watch every England game in the last 5 years against teams with wall to wall NRLers.
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Fri 18th Apr: SL: Wigan Warriors v St Helens KO 15:00 (Sky)
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
Am looking forward to this. I am really interested to see how our pack goes, and whether Walters will continue his development into a class act in the middle. Lots can happen during the game, but I think our best level is higher than Saints’ just now.