Dave T

Looks like ticket sales are going really well for this one, with Wigan having sold around 17k and Wire rumoured to have sold around 2.5k so far. With a few days to go, there is a very good chance that this will sell out, and if not then certainly 23k. The marketing effort has been excellent for this, and Warrington are now also promoting this game on their website. Interestingly, Wire fans are now getting the automated calls that Wigan fans often get with Richie Myler calling them. Unfortunately I can't make it, and I'm hopefully going to watch it in 3D if I can get somewhere to show it, has anybody seen 3D RL yet, I know they do it in Oz for games. As for the game, I am a little worried. Wigan are very good at home, they have the best attack, and our defence is slightly off at the moment, but here's hoping to a big effort and a great game for what should be a huge crowd, both live and for Sky.

I liked Duane Mann, who played for us in the early 90's IIRC. Not the fastest, but had a hell of a lot of skill (a little like Kelly Shelford)

Why reluctantly with Monas sam? I ask, because I think I feel exactly the same! The bloke has been dire at times for us, really one of the worst players I have seen, and his surly manner hardly won me over. Even when King was ###### you could see that he was an honest bloke, trying his heart out, and it just wasn't working for him. With Monas, I didn't get that feeling. He is now one of the best 9's running round in the comp and has signed a new contract and seems a new person. He will undoubtedly go down as a great signing for us, but I can't help but have that little bit of resentment towards him. Probably unfairly, but that's tough as it's how I feel.

It is interesting that most people have not selected current players in their teams. Is the reason simply that we haven't seen their full career pan out yet, or that players used to be better, or is it though nostalgic glasses where everything seemed better?

I don't doubt the credentials of these sponsors, it was purely in response to AC claiming that he hadn't heard of many of the SL sponsors, yet many over here won't have heard of the sponsors on the front of the NRL shirts. The fact is that the sports are on different scales, and also sports sponsorhsip is a different thing in the two countries. It appears to be much larger in Australia than it is in the UK (not necessarily in

Yeah, to be fair I thought my post was up for challenge, but even had they won at the weekend, they would have pretty much been safe, but I still feel the lethargy would be around the club.

The thing is though that Bradford aren't massively at risk of finishing in the bottom two anyway, so even with P&R in place there would probably still be this lethargy at the Bulls. Unless of course you live in Lobby's world where it's 4 up and 4 down, with promoted teams protected for a year, meaning that you could finish 7th and be relegated!

The BBC could play a huge part here, although I wonder whether they would actually want to. I would rather sacrifice broadcasting income for a deal which guarantees high profile coverage on the BBC in the month or so leading up to the tournament. We need to see interviews with our players and personalities on mainstream shows (things like the One Show, Breakfast,) we need slots on the news about the build up, we need special programmes about past World Cups and Test series' in the weeks leading up to the tournament to get the public aware of the history of the tournament, we need adverts for the tournament for weeks building up, and we also need the BBC to treat each game they cover with the respect it deserves. We haev seen in this country that when the BBC tells people there is an event on, people sit up and take notice. If the Home Nations Teams do well, then there could be a lot of profile raised, look at things like curling (?) and the profile that got when the Olympic team did well, or the way that Olympic Rowers and Cyclists are treated, despite the fact that these are events people aren't generally interested in. It can be done, we just need to be very smart with the media and broadcasting partners.

Certainly not the best team I could make, but players who gave me some of my favourite memories watching Warrington: 1 -Brian Johnson 2 -Des Drummond 3 -Allan Bateman 4 -Jonathan Davies 5 -Kevin Penny 6 -John Woods 7 -Lee Briers 8 -Adrian Morley 9 -Michael Monaghan (never thought I would say that!) 10-Les Boyd 11-Bob Jackson 12-Paul Cullen 13-Mike Gregory 14-Phil Blake 15-Greg Mackey 16-Ben Westwood 17-Andrew Johns

Cheers, pretty much the summary that my dad and mate gave me too. I'm pleased that the attack looked quite good again (especially with Briers out) but the defence is still a worry, especially when we are playing the best attack in the league at their place next up! Pleased to see Clarke back in, he isn't the best player in the world, but he does help the organisation when the likes of Monas and Briers have an off-day (although it doesn't sound like he organised the defence much yesterday!). Smith didn't seem too disappointed with the overall game yesterday, I wonder whether he was a little worried about the game, based on the fact we had been off-colour and Cas were going well. He does seem concerned about Wood's injury too.

Not really. Only a few days ago on the radio he was saying he genuinely hasn't made his mind up, and he could stay, and he could go. He certainly hasn't confirmed that he will go after 2011.

He had a good spell there earlier in the year when Briers was injured, although his form (like most others) has dipped in recent weeks. How did Clarke go sam?

The reason I didn't pick you up on any of the other examples you gave was due to the fact that I agree with your post, I just didn't class Warrington in with the other examples that you used. You will never find any examples of me criticising Quins, which is why I was annoyed as though I was simply defending Warrington and therefore criticising the others which I have not and probably never will.

There was me asking a civil question, sorry for questioning your comments. Don't bother responding.

Apparently there were 10,500 at Wire, and the 7,500 was a journalists error. SportingLife even quotes the 10,500 in it's report. BTW, does Moran pay Wire's bills, or are they pretty much self-sufficient and he puts the icing on the cake with 'extras'?

I'm not Graham's biggest fan, but he would go well down in Oz. He would possibly have to change his game slightly but he is clever and tough enough to do that. With regards to him bottling it, perhaps he just didn't want to get binned. These days you rarely see players stand up and fight as it will inevitably end up with them having a 10m break. That doesn't mean that these players are cowards or bottling it, they are probably being pretty sensible.

So some people are saying on the Wire site, although nowhere official says that. I would be surprised if the crowd was thousands down on recent crowds.

The crowd is down as 7,500 everywhere and tbh that is really poor, is this time of year bad for holidays or something (have the schools just broken up)? Or maybe the club have fallen into the same trap as last year and assumed fans will just turn up because we have won a couple rather than putting the hard work in behind the scenes. In terms of the game, once again our defence seems a touch soft, to concede so many tries at home isn't great, howveer it sounds like we had a couple of injuries during the game. I believe we also rested Briers and Harrison, and tbh it is pleasing that our attack was so good without Briers, hopefully with Myler getting back to form. I was a little worried about today's game so I'll take a 24 point win.

I didn't say you did. I was giving my thoughts on that game based on your comments. In a thread about the biggest and best derby, my comments are relevant.

One thing I would say about the quality of sponsor is that I haven't heard of many of the Aussie club main sponsors either, as they are local companies to the Australian market. With the exception of a few like Sanyo, Toyota, Vodafone and perhaps Pirtek.

You can have the collar too for that.

If Wigan win against Wire next week then they have the first spot guaranteed I would say, they are showing no signs of faltering at the moment. Wire still don't have that 2nd sewn up, if we win today we are still only 2 points ahead and we still have Wigan and Saints to play. Saints don't play against us lie they do against Catalans! (the bastards!). I can see Saints taking 2nd, and Leeds taking 4th, although it is quite positive for the game that those two lost in what is now coming up to the business end of the season. For the comps sake, Warrington beating Wigan at the DW (whilst unlikely) would be the best result, and could keep it tight at the top until the last week.

I don't think a game that draws out the dickheads from each club is something to be proud of or look forward to tbh. It is the only game where I change my parking arrangements as the train station is packed with animals, and I don't fancy walking past there to get my car after the game.

On this point, whilst it would be great to have the major sponsors lining up to have their names emblazoned on the RL shirts, this just doesn't happen, and the game can survive without them. If it means attracting more local sponsors who will put their name on the shirt and pay for the rights, then so be it, and we shouldn't be snobby about it (simply - we can't afford to be!).

After looking them up it seems they have bases in Melbourne, Palmerston North, Houston, a couple in Colorado, Portland, Toronto, South America, China, India, all over Europe, and of course, Warrington!