Sun 18th Jun: CCQF: Wigan Warriors v Warrington Wolves KO 14:30 (BBC)

[daz39]

4 hours ago, johnh1 said:

If only the sky commentary team could get as excited.

They probably would if they saw the games instead of having a banterful chat with their mates or watching replays.

[bobbruce]

3 hours ago, Barry Badrinath said:

If he could crack catching a high ball, he'd be first choice, that's the only thing holding him back.

Thought he was very good under the high ball. Certainly early on when Smith peppered his side. 

[bobbruce]

Hope Ellis has put a few quid behind the bar for his teammates. He should probably get the wire players a few beers too. 

[Dave T]

11 minutes ago, bobbruce said:

Hope Ellis has put a few quid behind the bar for his teammates. He should probably get the wire players a few beers too. 

I feel like we had ours pre-match

[Damien]

4 hours ago, EagleEyePie said:

I've had a quick scan of the previous pages and not really seen his name mentioned much. Ethan Havard was the best player on the field and his performance was the best from a Wigan prop in years. Every carry he made was strong, every tackle he made was effective. When errors were forced Havard was pretty much always involved. With a man down he played about 65 minutes. What a difference a quality prop can make!

I'm glad that wasn't a 3pm kick off though because the rain in Wigan is absolutely biblical right now.

And it's just been announced that he's signed for 4 more years:

[bobbruce]

11 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I feel like we had ours pre-match

I know we are joking but I do feel sorry for you and the other wire fans on here. They were awful when you play like that against such big rivals who are there for the taking. What’s Ratchford doing in the centres whilst Matautia is playing stand off. What’s happened to Vaughan looks a shadow of the player he was at the start of the year. Have the players downed tools over the McGuire incident. 

[fighting irish]

Worst performance I think I've ever seen. Reminiscent of England's semi final performance but much worse. 

[Harry Stottle]

15 hours ago, Davo5 said:

Bottom end League 1 on that showing.H.

Totally wrong Dav, that is far to complimentary for the Warrington team what a compete utter shambles they are, did the England captain play?

[fighting irish]

When we so often moan about poor marketing of our game, I could cry when a golden opportunity to promote rugby league like this one, results in accelerating the games image in reverse.

How can we claim our players are "world class athletes" when they put on such an embarrassingly inept performance? 

It all started so well too, with the "need for speed" intro, which looked great.

Damage was done yesterday. Warrington should be ashamed of themselves. 

[Saint Toppy]

14 hours ago, Industria ditat said:

Dufty is a dangerous support player, but there was nothing happening in front of him where he could back up and cause problems. He isn't creative enough to help his halfbacks. 

Thats Dufty to a tee though. The BBC commentary team picked up on it during the game and he' got slammed for it multiple times in the NRL. He's great being the support player once the break is made and there's open field but he won't back up anyone down the middle because he's too afraid to cop a hit. Just like he wont' put his body on the line in tackles.

[Damien]

58 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

When we so often moan about poor marketing of our game, I could cry when a golden opportunity to promote rugby league like this one, results in accelerating the games image in reverse.

How can we claim our players are "world class athletes" when they put on such an embarrassingly inept performance? 

It all started so well too, with the "need for speed" intro, which looked great.

Damage was done yesterday. Warrington should be ashamed of themselves. 

Every sport has poor quality games. It's not fair and unrealistic to expect Rugby League to be immune from this.

[Dave T]

I think people (as usual) are being a bit melodramatic. It was a tight battle with plenty controversy that went to the last few minutes. A lot of neutrals won't think much of the amount of errors 

And as for the commentary about this being the worst performance they've ever seen, well tbh, I've seen far worse from Wire over the last 12m.

[Dave T]

12 hours ago, bobbruce said:

I know we are joking but I do feel sorry for you and the other wire fans on here. They were awful when you play like that against such big rivals who are there for the taking. What’s Ratchford doing in the centres whilst Matautia is playing stand off. What’s happened to Vaughan looks a shadow of the player he was at the start of the year. Have the players downed tools over the McGuire incident. 

I think the reality is that we did well in the first half of the season, but not great. We managed to get a lot of decent results, and tbh, it probably saved Powell's job, but as things progress that may be questioned again. 

We are a solid team, and will win some, lose some, but I expect we are probably a 3rd-5th ranked team when you look at the other teams in there. We are probably battling the likes of Hull KR, Leigh and Salford. 

I was happy when we announced Powell, but I thought he was horrendous last year. I thought the arrogance he displayed in rippibg the team up, plus some of the bizarre selections really raised questions about him. And they aren't going away when you look at recent performances. We don't need to go too over the top just yet, but some of the real basics are missing, and he couldn't fix it last year, and I'm not convinced he can this year. 

Tactically we look very very poor. Using Matautia as a key man instead of playing to our strengths. 

[Gerrumonside ref]

I enjoyed the drama of the last 20 mins as a neutral Saints fan.

I like underdog stories and backs to the wall stuff in sport.

Although Warrington’s shortcomings were a big part of the story, I think Wigan’s doggedness and refusal to be broken by the adversity is the thing to admire here.

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Gerrumonside ref

[fighting irish]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

Every sport has poor quality games. It's not fair and unrealistic to expect Rugby League to be immune from this.

I agree broadly.

It's just a very sad incidence of Murphy's law, that we save the worst showing in decades for our largest audience.

There's something gravely amiss at the Halliwell Jones.

[Saint Toppy]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

I think the reality is that we did well in the first half of the season, but not great. We managed to get a lot of decent results, and tbh, it probably saved Powell's job, but as things progress that may be questioned again. 

We are a solid team, and will win some, lose some, but I expect we are probably a 3rd-5th ranked team when you look at the other teams in there. We are probably battling the likes of Hull KR, Leigh and Salford. 

I was happy when we announced Powell, but I thought he was horrendous last year. I thought the arrogance he displayed in rippibg the team up, plus some of the bizarre selections really raised questions about him. And they aren't going away when you look at recent performances. We don't need to go too over the top just yet, but some of the real basics are missing, and he couldn't fix it last year, and I'm not convinced he can this year. 

Tactically we look very very poor. Using Matautia as a key man instead of playing to our strengths. 

Powell is hailed as a messiah but what has he actually achieved in terms of success in the game ?

He got Fetherstone to a few titles in the Championship but he's struggled more often than not at SL level. He managed some good results with Cas getting a hubcap and a CC final but then ultimately lost when it really mattered. Leeds results were pretty mixed with him in Charge, and while he's done OK so far this year with Wire last year was an utter disaster.

[Barry Badrinath]

16 hours ago, bobbruce said:

Thought he was very good under the high ball. Certainly early on when Smith peppered his side. 

today, yes, but he can have a game where he would miss all of them, hopefully he's going in the right direction, consistency wise.

[Davo5]

6 minutes ago, Barry Badrinath said:

today, yes, but he can have a game where he would miss all of them, hopefully he's going in the right direction, consistency wise.

You’d hardly describe Dufty as safe & solid defensively.

[Barry Badrinath]

1 hour ago, Davo5 said:

You’d hardly describe Dufty as safe & solid defensively.

i'd like to describe dufty as recently departed, didn't want him here in the first place.

 

 

in fact, it was the wigan away game last year, that thewlis dufty and ashton all had stinkers under the high ball, wigan kept bombing them, and no one was helping the back 3, every one was challenged and every one was dropped.

[Faithful1865]

23 hours ago, MZH said:

Wigan deserve a lot of credit to grind that out with 12 men for essentially the whole game. Warrington were just dreadful though. I think I'm going to confidently state at this point that it's not their year.

And the prize for the most used line in recent history goes to MZH.  Well done that man.

[fighting irish]

7 hours ago, Dave T said:

I think people (as usual) are being a bit melodramatic. It was a tight battle with plenty controversy that went to the last few minutes. A lot of neutrals won't think much of the amount of errors 

And as for the commentary about this being the worst performance they've ever seen, well tbh, I've seen far worse from Wire over the last 12m.

Well if that's true Dave, we're in a much worse state than I thought. Look at the match stats. You'd expect better control and wiser decision making from an under 11's side. That a table topping team can't perform better than that is an indictment. The odd thing is that with anything like "average" stats they would have won comfortably. 

[Dave T]

19 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

Well if that's true Dave, we're in a much worse state than I thought. Look at the match stats. You'd expect better control and wiser decision making from an under 11's side. That a table topping team can't perform better than that is an indictment. The odd thing is that with anything like "average" stats they would have won comfortably. 

It happens. Teams have stinkers. Ben Currie has been one of our best this season, but he made a handful of errors on his own. 

[Leeds Wire]

8 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

Powell is hailed as a messiah but what has he actually achieved in terms of success in the game ?

He got Fetherstone to a few titles in the Championship but he's struggled more often than not at SL level. He managed some good results with Cas getting a hubcap and a CC final but then ultimately lost when it really mattered. Leeds results were pretty mixed with him in Charge, and while he's done OK so far this year with Wire last year was an utter disaster.

You're a massive wind up merchant and you can't even spell Featherstone. Your presence here is always negative.

[north yorks trinity]

12 hours ago, fighting irish said:

When we so often moan about poor marketing of our game, I could cry when a golden opportunity to promote rugby league like this one, results in accelerating the games image in reverse.

How can we claim our players are "world class athletes" when they put on such an embarrassingly inept performance? 

It all started so well too, with the "need for speed" intro, which looked great.

Damage was done yesterday. Warrington should be ashamed of themselves. 

I'm not sure it did any harm. It was a poor quality game but compelling viewing, at least to me as a neutral. When it comes to attracting an audience, quality obviously helps but it's not the be all and end all.

[Chris22]

Really enjoyed that match. It obviously wasn't the highest quality but the red card, massive Wigan effort and Warrington comeback made for compelling viewing.

I do wonder why Riley Dean is not seen a better option at half back than Mata'utai for Warrington. If he can't get in now, there probably isn't a future for him at the club. Warrington's errors were dreadful. In his absence, it showed the influence of Drinkwater. In a rare word of praise, though Thewlis had a great game.

Wigan played sensibly after being a man down. Their forwards stood up after some intense (but deserved) criticism in the last few weeks. 179 metres by Havard was incredible. And Smith found a time to get back to goalkicking form!