Chris22

I'm not sure of the benefit of the referee having an option of saying unsure. If they weren't unsure, they wouldn't be going to the video ref in the first place?

Yes, I agree. And that is reflected by how crowd figures always dip at this time of year, maybe it's something to do with the summer holidays (by comparison, they are at their best in February or March). That's why I think moving the Challenge Cup earlier is a good move because it capitalises on early season enthusiasm of fans. On the point earlier in the thread, there is a big incentive to finish top 2. Since this play off system was introduced, the Grand Final has been the top two in three of the four seasons. But it is hard to convert that into a real feeling of excitement when top spot and the teams competing in the play offs feel settled and we have no relegation. It just feels like we are waiting for October now before another meaningful match.

Leigh will also lose points for not retaining the Challenge Cup.

The highlight of the match for me was the performances of the two full backs. Eckersley was magnificent. Robertson did well too. For a first performance in a derby match, he handled what was thrown his way well. The difference for me was a couple of poor errors and the subs bench. The likes of Ritson and Davies trying to take on the outside of Wigan's defence near touch was frustrating and the latter particularly cost us. Three of our four subs had not taken the field by 70th minute and two of them never got on at all. Wigan's bench was far stronger and in a game of that intensity, to win with essentially 15 players was probably too much. The manner of our performance tonight makes last week's even more frustrating. Despite a heartening performance, three defeats in a row and Warrington next week is probably going to see us slip down the table and playing catch up in the race for 2nd place now.

I am cautious about the rumours that French is out as the same was said before Good Friday. Wellens has reportedly dropped Dodd, giving Robertson a debut at full back and moving Welsby to half back. We've had opportunity to bring Robertson in gently of late and haven't taken it. The fact we are doing this tonight suggests an element of panic. I'm not convinced dropping Dodd is the wisest call tonight but hopefully I'm wrong. If we play like we have in the last 2 weeks, we'll lose heavily. If we play to our best, it still may not be enough to win but will be enough to ensure a tight match. With a tough run coming up, could be a defining few weeks on the way, made harder by losing matches we would have expected to win of late.

Mike Coleman was appointed as a director in 2010 (see here). He owns more than 50% of our shares (i.e. so essentially controls the club). As I understand it, Eamonn McManus as chairman and Mike Rush as CEO have more influence on the day-to-day running of the club but Coleman invests heavily. For example, his financial backing was a big help for our 'new' stadium and, whilst I can't find a link, I recall hearing his financial support was a big help during covid and that he has written off some debts owed by the club to him. I don't think any of this is particularly secret. You just see and here less of Coleman by comparison to McManus (in the same way you see little of Paul Caddick at Leeds).

Wellens had said he doesn't know why we are so flat. On Challenge Cup semi final weekend, final weekend and during the international break, the players had significant amount of time off. In the middle of that, we played against London in what was effectively a training run. It's little wonder our combinations are off and our attack misfiring when we have done so little training.

We need to be very careful here. Steve Mascord has said on Twitter that the RFL can hire Wembley for a good price, that allows us to make money despite it being 2/3 full. If we move to Tottenham, Arsenal or anywhere else, they may raise the price after a few years. They may not renew an initial deal (less likely with Wembley). If that happens, then what? We are scrambling year-on-year for a Challenge Cup Final venue and before you know it, we're playing at Elland Road.

The optimistic view is that the crowd yesterday was higher than the equivalent semi final last year. Only just higher, but still.

To be fair, the RFL got criticised last year for allowing Leeds to play their Challenge Cup semi final at home (which in turn meant both Wigan teams played at Headingley) for compromising competition integrity. This is a situation where they can't win.

I think we must remember that not every stadium that we may want to play the Grand Final in would want us. Would Man City want us playing their in the middle of their season? I've seen nothing to suggest so.

I don't think prize money is the issue. Clubs take the competition very seriously. There is never any talk of players being rested for Super League matches (quite the opposite). You can see what victory means to the players. The biggest issue is the huge drop off in crowds. And that is because of season ticket culture. Fans pay a one-off amount or direct debit to see their teams league fixtures and the extra outlay for the Challenge Cup is significant. If your side gets to the final and you were to go to the four matches a Super League side would play in the cup, that would cost say between £100 - £150 for an adult, doing it on the cheap. Then add in friends of family members joining, travel, parking, food and drink. It's expensive and, even though it isn't by comparison to the wider entertaining market, it seems like poor value and a big outlay. How we solve that issue is the tricky point.

For the Williams one, it often feels like the video referee isn't shown the best angle. There would have been at least two angles that would have shown something more clear but Grant wasn't shown them.

Salford strike back!

Pele and Ese'Ese have got a size advantage on the likes of Lees, Delaney and Mata'utai and they really do not run their weight. The young Hull players gave their best effort but I didn't think their more experienced players led in the way that you would expect them to. Really tough times for Hull at the minute.

Bookies giving us a 30+ start. Very generous given that we've only won by that margin twice since September 2022. Think we'll win but won't be a blowout.

Since the start of March, we have scored 12, 20, 18, 20, 12, 8 and 8 points in our matches. We have won 4 of those 6 matches, ironically, one of those defeats coming in one of the two matches where we did crack 20 points! Our defence is usually excellent so despite being low scorers, we win more than we lose. But based on the season so far, if a side can score three tries against Saints, they will probably win. On a day like today where our defence was not good, we were comfortably defeated. I don't say this to take away from Warrington's win (I thought they were very good, especially Williams) but I doubt their players came out of the match thinking that was a particularly tough game. You can't win them all, but when you do lose, you at least want to feel that your opponent was pushed to its absolute limits to win. That didn't happen today, which is a concern.

Over 11,000 at St Helens today, at the start of the match anyway! Helped with a 2,500 + away following, but Saints' biggest Challenge Cup attendance since 2005.

There are no 'rugby league' towns in England, in my view. In every one listed in this thread, I would wager that more people follow football than rugby league.

I could spend all day thinking about this. But my instinctive answer was the GB v Australia test match at the JJB in 2003. It's remembered for the Adrian Morley red card but was a brilliant game aside from that.

On the subject of TV viewing figures, I think you get more 'IMG points' for getting over 150K average viewers for your TV fixtures. With all matches on TV and several at the same time, I would guess viewers are spread more widely this year.

I'm interested to see what side we name. Sironen and Percival are out. Walmsley, Lees and Batchelor all doubts. I would rather we didn't risk any players even with a slight knock given the far more important match we have next week. Goalkicking will be an issue for us. Percival isn't a natural as it is. So it's Makinson who is hit and miss or Dodd who hasn't kicked for a long time. That will make things harder for us as we will probably go up in 4 rather than 6. I'll back us to win, very narrowly!

I've learned my lesson about underestimating Salford! Saying that, I still think Wigan will win in a low-scoring, very-tight game! Winner will end the night top of the league tonight, which is credit to Salford's excellent start!

How can we say with such certainty how many teams will be in the Championship and League 1, when we don't know how many teams will be in Super League?

Thought this was a good piece in St Helens Star about the usual calls for Cup restructuring. Link