WN83

Not as good as Faz In all seriousness, he was unbelievable for a spell of 4 or 5 years. Injuries stopped him in his tracks, which was such a shame. It isn’t often I’ve watched us against the Aussies and we’ve had the player on the field who is playing head and shoulders better than everyone else but he did that on a few occasions. He looked like he was made out of granite and it’s so rare that such a tough, uncompromising player, is that skilful with the ball.

The decision by Hardaker just makes it clearer in my mind that Wigan are well shut. He needed to leave Wigan and move to Yorkshire to save his marriage and mental health, which was his excuse for causing problems at Wigan and here we are.

It’s a disgrace that they’re so open about pinching the kit design from the Leopard t-shirts you see scattered about Leigh Market Hall. It all looks so so tacky. Had they changed the name to the Leopards and done it well, it could’ve been a positive but the badge and the kit are shockers. On the upside for Leigh, they’ve named some real quality signings and the pressure is on every side at the bottom now to try and respond and get a squad together capable of finishing above them.

Great stuff that. Really promising to hear of the rush in sales in the London are for the semi final in the hours after the Samoa game. The beauty of the casual viewer of the game is that good victories over the French and Greece will tempt more out. They won't think like us die hards do and go 'it's only France' or 'it's only Greece', they'll just see Dom Young, Jack Welsby or whoever running in trys and want to see a game in the flesh. Lets just keep everything crossed for no upsets before that semi and that we can perform in that game, if we do make it. To watch our international side, back to back, in London and then Manchester, in front of 60,000 and 75,000 would be extremely special. Too much to ask that we get next years series announced, venues confirmed and early bird tickets on sale in time to ride that momentum? I would hope not.

Tomkins and Watkins to get the rest for me- Welsby Young, Pearce-Paul, Farnworth, Hall Williams, Sneyd Hill, McIlorum, Oledzki Bateman, Batchelor, Radley Subs-Burgess, Thompson, Whitehead, Ackers.

I can't look past an England player after a performance like that and went with Williams. After a really tough year at Wire, I thought it was the best performance I've seen him come up with, certainly in a big game. He was a constant threat with the ball, played with great control, his passing and short kicking game was exceptional and as usual, he was defensively very strong. Good signs that we could pick a few of the English lads.

My dads 74 and it’s massively limited what games he’s attending. Money is tight for a lot of people and when he paid £55 for Saturday, £60 for the final, £25-30 for the England quarter and about 2 or 3 other local group fixtures, he’s knocked the rest on the head. Had their been concession prices I reckon he’d have done another 7 or 8 games. The same income for the game I suppose (if they’re half price) but numbers in the ground swelled, which helps make the atmosphere.

My experiences have all been reasonably positive on a laptop but absolutely shambolic on mobile phones or tablets. It’s letting the game down, it really is. I can’t get over every downloadable ticket they send saying you need to print it when it just isn’t the case, other than at Warrington and Boro (now St James is out the way).

Loved Justin Horo's description of Shaun Wane- "experienced, won loads of titles, a heavy c*nt, an OG, known on the streets of Wigan, should've been in the Peaky Blinders" It would make a fine headstone.

Expect him to take Superleague by storm next season. He’s so dangerous getting out from Dummy half. I said at the game tonight I think I’ll put a few quid on him to make the dream team.

It’s the right call for me. It’ll drive competition and keep all the players feeling a big part of it. If they rest 7 players, as Wane seems to suggest is the case, you can then go strong against Greece and have a tune up in time for the quarter final (probably just resting any player who isn’t 100%).

I read a bloke on the Wigan forum saying he spent £40 on printer ink today to print tickets for the game tonight because it says on all tickets ‘these must be printed’ and they don’t.

Not according to an email they sent before the tournament telling you how to download E-Tickets. They said only Newcastle, Wire and Boro and before games at Newcastle and Warrington so far, the RLWC social media channels have made a point of reminding people tickets must be printed. They’ve not done that for any other games and I’ve seen people using mobile phone tickets at both Kingston Park and tonight at St Helens.

Yeah I’ve had it. All I can see as a difference is it used to say ‘South Stand, Block A’ on my ticket and it now says ‘South Stand, South Block A’ on there. The barcodes are the same. It’s doing my head in how every single E-ticket says they must be printed off but they’ve already confirmed only Newcastle, Wire and Middlesbrough need to be printed.

A great night. I expected a good game heading over to St Helen’s tonight but it was better than good. The PNG team in particular were great to watch. The atmosphere was good and the Tongan fans really are something special. It deserved a bigger crowd really but it was ok.

I had decided to go to Lebanon v Ireland and PNG v Cook Islands instead of England and France on Saturday due to the cost of tickets for England v France. There was only £55 and upwards tickets left when I got round to it. I've been tempted in to the England game now by the restricted view seats they've just released today though, so will do all 3. I believe the view restrictions are extremely minimal, with handrails just blocking the view slightly, so if anyone doesn't mind that and wants tickets, they're £25 and £10 for kids. My daughter isn't really in to the rugby but for a tenner I thought I may as well take her along.

It used to take him 5 hours some days to get home from Wigan training to Ponte, so if you believe that, there's every chance he could move to Leigh. Rumour has it he asked not to be selected for the World Cup as he was worried about the 24 hour coach journey from the team hotel to Newcastle for the opener and that's before we take in to account the potential of a 36 hour sleeper train down to London for a semi. In short, I wouldn't rule it out.

Up and at um! Just about to set off on the drive up to Newcastle. Safe journey to all who are going and have a great day/weekend. Come on England

Just seen a picture on Twitter of the display at either end of the ground that Wor flags has set up and that looks fantastic. It should be a great atmosphere.

We do worry about how many seats are empty an awful lot, rather than being positive about how many are full. I’m the worlds worst for it but going back to the Ashes and tri series of the early 2000’s, we were staging games in three stadiums of 25k each and struggling to fill them sometimes. I think the pricing of all the games (pretty much) is off but 40-45,000 at these prices is a really fantastic effort and we can build from it.

John Davidson tweeted saying he’s seen a rumour suggesting Oliver Russell and Matty English might go the other way. We’ll see what comes of that and any other signings but Hull FC’s main signing will be Tony Smith and I’m sure the decision has been made with the best interests of future plans at heart. I can’t see anything other than huge improvements under Smith and that would’ve been with or without Connor.

Just reading Aaron Bower saying he could be out for up to ten months and might not be available until August. Presumably that’s why there seems to have been no fee. Hull want the cap space and Huddersfield are happy to play the long game with him.

Going to be some job on at Huddersfield to keep all the players happy with the minutes they're getting. It feels like they have at least 2 players in every single position from 1-13 and some besides. It felt like they lacked a player to really make something happen in tights games last season and Connor could be that man. It won't be the quickest backline but they'll be tough to beat (as they were this season) and now they have a man who can bring those big moments, in tights games.

I feel for Ackers, he was absolutely superb last week but I thought what was overlooked a little, was that Micky Mac actually played pretty well himself. A lovely little blind side play helped set up the Watkins try (was that one IIRC) and he set McMeekan up for one as well. As you say, he certainly won't hurt us in defence and will take it to the Samoans. Rightly or wrongly, we've not had a proper running hooker at Wigan since Micky Higham and under Wane the hooking role was always one of distributing the ball to your halves early and then setting a tone in defence. I'd like the change up option Ackers would provide but I expect Williams will take on that role at some point.

England by 10