Sat 29th Jul: SL: Wigan Warriors v Leigh Leopards KO 13:00 (C4)

[phiggins]

2 minutes ago, Snowys Backside said:

Brierley to Leigh Again ?

I though Salford had just received half a Million injection from the fans ? They are a good team. Need to stick with it and there isn't any sense for Leigh to but or Salford to sell for that matter considering they have just cashed in big time with Dupree.

Wrong thread? Agree with what you say though.

[Snowys Backside]

1 minute ago, phiggins said:

Wrong thread? Agree with what you say though.

[Liverpool Rover]

The game looked like it was going to be a tussle till the end but the late tries in the first half seemed to knock the stuffing out of Leigh who did weren't their usual selves in attack and really didn't do much and paid for it. Leigh will be hoping that they have got their bad game out of the way before the final.

[phiggins]

7 hours ago, Liverpool Rover said:

The game looked like it was going to be a tussle till the end but the late tries in the first half seemed to knock the stuffing out of Leigh who did weren't their usual selves in attack and really didn't do much and paid for it. Leigh will be hoping that they have got their bad game out of the way before the final.

I’m hoping but not expecting. We were poor against Salford just before the semi final and relied on one or two moments of quality and a hell of a lot of goal line defence against Saints. We’re just not playing that well, and teams have found a way to defend our usual plays down the left

[EagleEyePie]

7 minutes ago, phiggins said:

I’m hoping but not expecting. We were poor against Salford just before the semi final and relied on one or two moments of quality and a hell of a lot of goal line defence against Saints. We’re just not playing that well, and teams have found a way to defend our usual plays down the left

I thought the most noticeable thing was the drop off in quality from Amone and Mulhern to Nakubuwai and Wilde. I thought the starting props were a little stronger than Wigan's, but all 4 of our props were much better than Leigh's interchange, so even with one of the starting props on the field we still had the edge.

It's an issue Wigan have struggled with at times this season but the arrival of Dupree and the upturn in the form of Mago has really made a difference. Against Leigh there was no usual drop off in performance when Ellis left the field, our bench actually performed better.

I do think Ipape was a big miss, and O'Donnell too.

[phiggins]

33 minutes ago, EagleEyePie said:

I thought the most noticeable thing was the drop off in quality from Amone and Mulhern to Nakubuwai and Wilde. I thought the starting props were a little stronger than Wigan's, but all 4 of our props were much better than Leigh's interchange, so even with one of the starting props on the field we still had the edge.

It's an issue Wigan have struggled with at times this season but the arrival of Dupree and the upturn in the form of Mago has really made a difference. Against Leigh there was no usual drop off in performance when Ellis left the field, our bench actually performed better.

I do think Ipape was a big miss, and O'Donnell too.

Very good point. That is definitely an issue, and has been all season. While Wigan made decent yards throughout, I don't think they would've marched down the field for the back to back try just on half time like they did with Amone and Mulhern on the pitch. And it was Wilde that struggled to get back to the defensive line and missed the tackle on Dupree for the first try of the second half. It's something that has been masked by Amone and Mulhern regularly doing very big minutes with both regularly doing 65-70 minutes. If this was a play off or a cup game, I imagine Wilde would've been an unused sub.

To be fair, if you'd told me at the start of the season that the quality on the bench could be the difference between winning something and not, I'd have taken it. But if it costs us the final, maybe leave it a while before reminding me of that!

Ipape was a miss, and am hoping O'Donnell will offer more of an attacking option for Lam than Holmes as been doing, as well as the defensive and yardage work that he gets through. Teams are now pushing up onto Charnley, so Lam needs to find other plays.