all i say is thank the lord the derby is back! that is rugby league out of the top draw tonight!



both teams where fantastic! some fantastic youth on display in sam, shaun and kyle!



rugby league is looking up in lancashire!

Played crap and still beat them at their own ground (Well football ground)..Had Thaler spotted the forward pass to Bobby Davro on the wing we would of only conceeded 1 try....Not bad when you can perform for 20 mins and beat your local rivals

your son had an alright game as well

We scored 20 points against them !!



For the fan who thinks it was a great derby tonight with no trouble go have a read at the post about the poor Wigan fella getting jumped by 2 Stains supporters whilst with his little boy !! WOW Brave lads those 2 !

You were no way 12 points better than Barrow on Sunday and you know it ! Every fan I spoke to after the game said you were lucky to scrape through - against 16 part timers and a fella who had just arrived in the Country from Oz !

Wigan flattered to deceive.

The effort and passion were there, but they were playing a team that had just been in a real tough match at Headingley and who were naturally jaded.



Lets see how Wigan get on at Catalans, and the Magic weekend against Saints



Creatively Wigan were ordinary. They dominated possession and territory but couldnt do anything with it.

On the few occasions Saints were able to get into Wigans half we always looked like we were going to score.



What summed it up for me was that whenever Wigan took the lead, Saints had enough in the tank to raise their game a notch, go down the field and score.



Lets face it this was there cup final, they had to put everything into this match. They did, and came out with the wooden spoon.

Stop giving the game away la. We all saw how potentially jaded Saints mimicked the gameplay untill the sixty mark untill we could use the" we could twist the fake lack of energy to lull the enemy into a false sense of security in order to win a game on a we told you so styl-ee see if we dont but guess if you can spot the difference betweeen us running out of steam or us pretending we did but not really kind of or did we but it worked cause we scored more tries than you styl-ee" Is that a relevant Potter quote ah who knows type speech?

So says Hamball courtesy of Brian Cant and Floella Benjamen on behalf of Play School

Wigan threw everything at us and with the posession and territorial advantage they had, for us to only concede 2 tries is an outstanding defensive performance.



Compared to the Leeds game we looked out of sorts in attack, but I always thought if we were in touch when Kieron came back on we would go on to win.

It's still 12 points, which is close.

The difference between Champion teams like St Helens, and teams like WIgan is that we know when to up the tempo and when to decrease the tempo. When we went behind I wasnt worried because I knew we would still win. Wigan to their credit threw everything at us, and we absorbed it and then kicked on when we needed to. There is no point playing the whole game at such a high intensity, after that bruising encounter against Leeds. A good coach will recognise when to up the intenisty.



4 players for Wigan stood out. Feka, Ainscough, Tomkins and Hock. Feka to his credit put a lot of work in and on that performance, looks a much fitter player than he did last season. Ainscough was everywhere and I am hoping he carries on his progression and makes a superb international winger. Hock is a wigan lad and ran himself into the ground for wigan, he is so devastating down the channells, but luckily for us, we have superb tacklers. Against another team he would have devasted them. Then there was Tomkins. I can see why the wigan fans rave over him. He is going to be something special.



Overall, chuffed with that. Wigan didnt just roll over for us like they used to. They just need to start getting themselves up for the hudds, cas, wakeys of SL and they will be there or thereabouts come the business end of the season.

Wigan didn`t deserve to win. They didn`t take their chances against a Saints team that made many errors in the first half, and it is the worst display I have seen from Saints so far.