WN83

I’d imagine Thompson or Ellis will play 13 and I could see Hill being loaned out for the season. Walters has been signed to play second row. I reckon they’ll want to keep Eseh close to the club and get him used to the place and work on him physically but he’ll go out on DR and in shorter loan spells. Tiaki Chan I could see competing to play in the second row and will again probably head out on DR and shorter loans. All that will leave Thompson/Ellis (whoever isn’t at loose) Dupree, Havard, Byrne, Mago and an injured Mike Cooper as frontline props, so it looks a lot on paper but week to week, it’s probably going to be 5 players for 4 spots until Cooper is back and 6 for 4 when he’s back (presuming nobody goes down in the meantime). Quite a bit of this recruitment looks to have been done with an eye on 2025, when Cooper is likely to be retired and they have the option to release Mago. At that point, I expect Hill and Eseh will move up a spot.

The opposition and the kick off times are the biggest deciding factors in regards the atmosphere IMO. If we played games as we used to do, around 5-6pm on Saturday evenings, the atmosphere would be much improved. If we were playing the Aussies and were kicking off after dark, then I think the grounds would be buzzing (especially in an Ashes series, with 20 years between drinks).

Don’t want to curse him but 12 on the spin from that semi onwards and some extremely tough kicks in there as well.

Fabulous by Lewis. The two halves have been excellent so far. We’ve looked a bit disjointed defensively. Good game though.

I wouldn't be surprised if Makinson, rather than Young ends up there. He's played centre (and played very well) for England before in Denver. I wouldn't be too concerned if he did tbh, he's too good a player to let us down.

Makinson will play IMO and continue to kick goals (as he did in the World Cup).

KPP has to be having an op or is carrying a knock. That's what I say about needing more information before really going in. I doubted him massively before he came back from his last injury but he has been absolutely superb in this last third of the season. The same goes for Wardle (although he's been superb all year). I just can't see how he's left out unless he's carrying something. We have 2 right centres in the squad and a couple of wingers who may be able to cover.

Several players pulled out with injury is the line in the press release, so hard to bag any none selections without knowing that info. Straight off the top of my head, I'm surprised there are no places for KPP, Wardle, Thompson, Lomax and Walmsley but who knows the reasons why. Hopefully more information will come out over the next few days and then we can make sense of it all.

Bateman and Whitehead are in the country and I watched a podcast with James Graham earlier and Tom Burgess was the guest. It was filmed a few weeks back but he commented that he was flying over the week after filming. He did make one worrying comment saying he’d play for England for free, before adding ‘in fact it looks like we are this year’. It’s crazy to think we’re playing a game a week after a GF. At a minimum, I’d expect Wardle, Smith and Pearce-Paul to be in from Wigan and most of the Wigan lads are on the lash in Dublin as we speak. They deserve that but it’s not great prep for a test match.

It’s an unbelievable sport. Massively entertaining! What a great result for Wigan and what a weekend.

It’s great to be able to talk about it anyway. I do think we’ll give it a crack and I wouldn’t write us off but clearly it’ll be a huge challenge and Penrith will be geared up for it. The losses of Crichton and Leniu are pretty big. He comes up with some huge plays Crichton (well bar the WCC when he was awful) and Leniu keeps that energy going that Fisher-Harris and Leota start with. Our 1-17 looks pretty strong for next year, so you never know.

It was a pretty standard grand final. Tight, tense and defences on top. I went in to the game pretty confident we would win 'if' we were in touch around the hour mark because we're a fitter and fresher team than Catalans. One major worry going in to it was the fact a lot of games have been blow outs during this recent run, with only the Leigh game being a tight contest but the the defence was again outstanding. Looking ahead to a potential game with Penrith, that will be unbelievably tough. Saints deserved their win against them but I think they've given them every bit of motivation they'll need for the next WCC and it will be a switched on Penrith side Wigan will face. I don't think it's an impossible task, with them losing Crichton now as well but we'll be rank outsiders.

They had the Grand Final Trophy on display in Victoria station yesterday as well.

There always seemed to be a media day at Old Trafford in the past and some natural advertising came through the articles on the back of that. Maybe it's today? but I've missed any word of it so far this week, so it doesn't look to have taken place yet. In fact the only interview I saw on the box was Bevan French being interview by Jenna and Wilkin and some bloke behind the camera mentioning part way through that he was off for a slash

There are some great stories around this final and some fantastic match ups. Catalans certainly have the edge in terms of experience in the spine positions but Wigan have the advantage in freshness/pace in those same spots. Grand Finals very rarely see a team open up and play free flowing rugby, so in a tight battle I'm possibly just edging for the Catalans experience to win it for them but French/Field only need a slip of concentration or two to punish teams. I'll go with the draw, nobody to score in Golden Point and us to share the trophy after playing until about 10pm (Not that I'm sitting on the fence)

Attitude wise Partington is just what Wire need. He is developing in to a leader and you’ll get no shortage of effort and energy from him. He’s really developed that link play this season (although in saying that, he did have it at Wigan but rarely played in a position to use it). He’ll never break records in terms of metres per carry but he makes up for that in other areas. Give me a choice of him or Bullock back at Wigan and it would be Partington all day. If only Bullock had Partingtons desire, aggression, character etc, he’d be a world beater.

That’s going to be the test isn’t it. If there are any empty seats (barring the odd single) from half way, down towards and including the Stratford end, then they’ve failed paying customers again. Wiganers are buying seats at the Catalans end to ensure they get in. That should only be happening if there is literally no choice. I’ve no doubt we’ll see huge chunks of empty seats in the upper tiers at the Stratford end though and Wigan fans will be wondering why they couldn’t get them.

Which has really miffed plenty of people and even as somebody who cannot commit to a season ticket, I agree it's not right, especially when the allocation was 8,000. To have no priority period for the ST holders only could've worked had the initial allocation been well in advance of the number of ST holders. If we'd have been given 12,000-15,000 it wouldn't have been an issue.

On the RFL site the whole Western end (anything past half way) is greyed out now, so it’s either sold out or they’re trying to force people to go down the other end, which is then impacting on Wigan and where they can sell tickets. The RFL really needs to get over this approach of trying to force people in to certain areas of stadiums.

Sounds the usual RFL shambles. Wigan got an allocation of 8,000 (less than the amount of season ticket holders), which sold out in no time and the club are trying to find out if they will get anymore. As things stand Wigan have no tickets to sell, yet even the most optimistic rugby league fan would suggest there must be at least 20,000 tickets floating around. You try and go on the RFL site and you can buy tickets up the other end but the site is dreadful and keeps crashing for people. We can't blame Catalans for RFL events losing money when it's the usual amateur hour stuff.

Sounds like our tickets have gone well so far. People being turned away at the ticket office due to the allocation being sold out and only singles showing on the RFL site. Presume a further allocation will land with the club soon enough. It’s amazing what the sniff of a trophy can do to people who’ve watched games on tv all season.

Concourses are dreadful and always have been. When it’s a full house, it’s nigh on impossible to move around under there, let alone to bother getting a drink. Even at the Wigan end yesterday, it took an age pre match to get a pint. They desperately need to get in line with other modern stadiums and get the machines that poor drinks 4 at a time. The whole ground needs some money spending on it tbh and now the same bloke owns both clubs, I’m hoping we’ll see that.

I was confident going in to today (and I’m never confident) and it was well placed. The team have just looked so focussed and determined over the last couple of months and when they’re in that place, we have points in us. I have to give huge credit to HKR and their fans. It wasn’t their day but they’ve been class this year. The ambition they’ve shown and the way the fans have backed them gives me hope that the sport as a whole can thrive. It went wrong today but very few KR fans left the ground and they showed their appreciation at the end. The club is going nowhere and look strong going in to 2024. Finally, looking at next week, it could go either way. I’m confident we’re a faster and fitter team than Catalans and I think we have more individual threat but Catalans have Micky Mac, Mitchell Pearce and Sam Tomkins. They know exactly what it takes to win big games and they won’t panic. I think that big game experience is worth a 6 point start and we’ll have to turn that around. I think it’ll be a cracking game.

I’ve been surprised both last week and again tonight with a lack of defensive intensity from Saints. Don’t get me wrong, Saints went up a couple of levels compared to the regular rounds and they’ve defended great all year but I never quite felt they put Wire or Catalans in the washing machine style spin they’ve done to teams in previous years. It’s felt at times that teams just can’t breathe against Saints and before they’ve even taken a step forward, there are bodies flying at them and that forces a large amount of errors but it’s just not happened this time. I looked at Catalans after 50 mins and they looked spent but then Saints started to look equally as tired and that surprised me. All year a few Saints bodies have looked to be creaking. Guys like Makinson, Percival and Walmsley have put up super human efforts these last few years but it’s taken a toll looking at them this season. Great players but looking increasingly fragile.

Strikes me as the sort of bloke who might stick around the game for a while and then quietly exit, with no fuss whatsoever. I could see him working a 9-5pm in years to come and youngsters asking him what he did when he was younger and they wouldn’t believe you if you told them he’s one of the best to ever play the game of rugby league. He just seems so humble and down to earth. There can be nothing but admiration for him. He just seems a class act all round.