EagleEyePie

It will go a bit unnoticed but I thought Harry Smith's defence was really impressive. Made some really good cover tackles but also his pressure on the ball carrier that led to a rushed pass and the Johnstone interception. Add that to some good kicks and a smart passing game to get Lewis and Welsby into space I thought he was pushing Lewis for man of the match in terms of overall performance.

Brilliant interview from Mikey Lewis. Shows how much it means to be selected for England to be that emotional. That's the sort of commitment you want. No doubt we'll see Tyson Frizell in tears telling us how much it means to represent Wales Australia Tonga.

Lewis has been bumped off tackles quite easily at times. Tonga haven't been able to take advantage but Williams is one of the best defenders you could want so I'm fairly sure he'll replace Lewis. They are both players who play best when they run the ball but Williams is ahead of Lewis in terms of ability.

Warrington's Toby King has been a bit suspect defensively at times. Maybe just because he's switched from his usual right edge to the left but you'd definitely put Farnworth in ahead of him.

Jonathan Davies complaining about England's lack of organisation during a set when the last 3 or 4 tackles were organised to move the defence into the right position to put on that try scoring play. Great score from England and a lovely pass from Welsby.

That was some great play from Smith and Lewis. Halves linking well which is good to see.

Where was Welsby? Sitting ducks on our right edge there. Wales international Tyson Frizell with an easy score.

So a player running on the outside shoulder of a defender and making contact is an obstruction in Super League according to Liam Moore but isn't at international level also according to Liam Moore.

To be fair he's 24, which is far too early to throw prop forwards on the scrap heap. A lot of props don't really hit their peak until around age 27 or 28. There have been countless props that were promising but took a long time to really reach the level expected. Not saying Kibula will be making the Dream Team within a few years but there's definitely a lot of improvement that can take place during your mid-20's if you're a forward. Some of that improvement can be in attitude, as well as just learning your limitations and understanding how to get the best out of your abilities. I do hope he can have some success at Cas. Despite his weaknesses at that age he was probably the most exciting player to watch during his time in Wigan's academy, though more for his ball playing ability than his carries.

A couple of players heading out the door at Wigan. Smithies looks set to join Canberra for next season, which probably explains the recruitment and retention of so many middle forwards over the last few months. Young academy prop Kavan Rothwell has joined Leigh on a one-year deal.

This game has been tremendous. Some fantastic skill on show. Huge efforts from both sides. Leeds for the fightback and now Wigan to go from looking like there was nothing left in the tank to 8 points ahead.

I'd probably go with this too. I love it when there's a play that starts from deep and then goes all the way down field through slick handling and great support play. It's even better when it feels like it's completely instinctive and you wonder how they even knew where the support players were going to be. Throw in a great offload, a no-look pass or a flick pass to make it extra special.

The Lathums would be incredible as the entertainment for this year given a large percentage of the crowd will be from Wigan. They did pretty well at Glastonbury which is a huge step up from the shows they'd previously been playing. A largely home town crowd would make a huge difference, but it probably wouldn't be anywhere near as good if it had been a Catalans v Hull KR final. I don't think it's about attracting people who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the sport to come to the game purely because of the pre-match or half time entertainment. That's unrealistic. It's about making the event seem as attractive as possible. I wouldn't go to a netball final because a band I liked were playing, but if I knew someone who was a fan of netball that was going I'd be tempted to go with them if that was the case, or if it felt like there was more of a show and more of an event than simply watching an ordinary netball match. This is where pre-match entertainment can make a difference. You expand on the rugby league die hard audience to convince friends and family to be part of it too.

They haven't had any number 1 hits. They had one somewhat well known song (more from adverts than anything else) and only 2 songs ever make the top 20. They are obscure and this is music from my era when I was a big fan of what was classed as indie music. They weren't a big band even back then and are essentially a one hit wonder. Even Scouting for Girls have had more 'hits' and they perform at SL fixtures. At least James had 8 top 20 singles that people might recognise and one massive hit song.

As a sport we're not very good at attracting artists to perform at our headline event are we? Not expecting mega stars but a modern band on the rise or an older band with songs that people might recognise should be what we're aiming for. Maybe it's purely financial and we're that skint. Some will say it doesn't matter but I remember how good the build up felt when Feeder performed in 2016 and James performing in 2014 is still a vivid memory (probably because I did my best to block out the subsequent 80 minutes).

I don't know why you can't buy online from Wigan as tickets are being sold at the ticket office, so there must be tickets available. Unless Windows 98 has encountered an error and they haven't been able to reopen sales online. The fact that you can't pick your own seats when buying online through the club is ridiculous. I don't know whether that's down to Wigan's shambolic ticketing system or them not being given access to the system used when buying from the Super League website, but events like this are hardly solo experiences so obviously people want to sit in groups. I know that some people may not be tech savvy and prefer to buy in person but there surely wouldn't have been queues of that size if families could just pick their preferred seats when buying online from the club. Edit: Looks like more tickets have just been made available online a few minutes ago.

Wigan have received a further allocation but the tickets aren't actually at the club, so anyone buying from the ticket office has to come back later in the week to collect or have them sent by post. You can't choose where you're sitting and can only pick a category and get what you're given. There's no guarantee that you'll get seats together so my family of 6 (including 2 children) could all end up sat in separate seats nowhere near each other. How on earth can it be this difficult to sit with your family in your clubs allocated section at a Grand Final? There's literally no point buying them from Wigan unless you're going alone. There's so many empty seats in the Catalans end if you buy through the RFL that it's the only sensible option, rather than playing ticket roulette through the club.

No idea why Wigan were given such a small initial allocation of tickets. No tickets available through the RFL anywhere near the Wigan end of the ground so demand was always going to be high. They must have a specific number of seats reserved so why not just release them all for sale?

That's if they attempt to cancel his contract. If all parties agree a move to another club as is the case with most contracted players they won't have to give him a pay off. It would surprise me if it got to a point where nobody was interested in Croft or willing to pay him a salary that he's worth and that Croft had no intention of joining another club. (There's always a risk though - like if he'd picked up a serious injury, so Salford do need to try to get rid of him before next season in my opinion as his stock is high).

So my initial thoughts after that game are that Greta Thunberg is clearly on to something with this ol' global warming thing because I should not be melting in the East Stand in October!! Where's the miserable Autumn playoff weather? I was expecting a tight game but Rovers didn't really play to the standards they are capable of. While Wigan started well we were very much allowed to start well. Early on the line speed from Rovers was really poor and they seemed a bit disorganised. We scored some fairly simple tries and a lot of that came from not being put under enough pressure. If you allow Wigan time on the ball you're going to get punished. Put us under pressure and we can make some errors but that never really happened. Massive credit has to go to the Rovers travelling fans though. The best away support I've seen at the DW except for Saints. A credit to their club and they made for a good atmosphere and the DW always looks a lot better with the North stand filled.

If Salford can't afford his wages they can allow him to leave for free to another club. There are enough interested parties already and the lack of good quality halves in Super League means he's going to be wanted by other clubs. It seems very unlikely that Salford wouldn't be able to offload him at all unless he picked up a serious long term injury. I agree about the potential transfer fee being a lot less now that it could have been. That's why I said it was never a guarantee of a big fee, or even a guarantee of a fee at all, but it does give them the best chance of receiving one. If it turns out Croft leaves for free they haven't lost anything compared to if he was on a one year deal. They miss out on potential money but it was never a guarantee. They must have budgeted for being able to keep Croft until the end of the season at least, otherwise they'd have allowed him to leave before the transfer deadline. If it turns out they can't afford him then not releasing him when they had the chance was the mistake. They could have allowed him to leave at any point up until the deadline. I think Salford becoming a desperate seller is because things have become even worse than anticipated but there's more than just Brodie Croft on their salary cap so I'm not sure he alone can be pinpointed as an issue. If players like Sio, Watkins, Lafai, Burgess and Ackers aren't also on decent money they want new agents.

I'm really surprised Matt Shaw has gone with that take as I thought he was pretty clued up. Every man and his dog (except seemingly Matt Shaw) knew that signing Brodie Croft to such a long term deal served only one real purpose, which was to give them a bit of leverage to request a decent transfer fee when he leaves. It's not a guarantee of a big fee, but it definitely makes it more likely. Salford's financial issues and Brodie Croft's extended contract aren't really linked. If nobody came in with a transfer offer they'd allow him to leave for free if his contract was so unaffordable and there would be plenty of clubs willing to take him. I get that he's saying Salford haven't been transparent about their financial difficulties and it's part of a broader point but it just seems odd that he's criticising them for something that actually seems quite sensible given their position.

That's why Sam Tomkins is one of the greatest players in Super League history. Even at 34 with dodgy knees he can still be the game changer. Incredible finish to the game.

I thought Kendall was right there. He didn't seem to make much contact with the head and if there was any it wasn't significant because he caught him on the shoulder first. No need to take further action for something that could have been bad, but warn the player about swinging an arm into players in that manner. No drama there.

That's harsh. Lomax goes across Johnstone's line and makes no attempt to play that ball. I'm not sure that's a 'push', more an inevitable collision due to Lomax's decision to position himself between Johnstone and the ball (as you obviously would do).