I know it wasn’t a pretty watch
for many Wigan fans last Friday but after Castleford, you have to take the result
we got against Hull FC. Castleford was so unbelievably low a performance that
we probably needed to strip back to absolute basics first and in a way, we did
just that.
For example, last week I talked
about some of the faults this season. The main ones being the amount of penalties
conceded and the lack of metres from the pack so far. Against Hull at least we
rectified those faults. The penalty count was low and we made 1,527 metres in
go forward, which is a great return in any Super League match.
So I think there was progress made
but by the same token I’m not sure what to make of the fact that we fell over
the finishing line in winning the match. It’s a bit of a glass half full or
half empty scenario for me.
One on hand you can look at it
and say that after losing big leads to drop points at Widnes and Hull KR that
we can take the positive that after being back at 12-6 early second half and
then 13-12 with still seven minutes to play, we actually hung on to a lead this
time. There weren’t any real signs of panic given what had happened in the past
and the majority of that last seven minutes was actually seen out pretty well
by Wigan.
Or you can think the other way in
that once again we have a good platform at 12-0 but we didn’t kick on and dictate
the rest of the game from that score, just like against Widnes and Hull KR. Is
that a worry?
I’m now arguing with myself
writing this on which side of that coin I’m backing but one thing is for sure.
Having ran a “from a fans perspective” website (cherryandwhite.co.uk) for the
past fourteen seasons, which in turn contributed me to becoming commentary
summariser on Wish FM, I get to see a ton of feedback from supporters and there
is no denying that the ultimate feedback is that Wigan have been a hard watch
so far this season.
What we really need now is a
breakout performance and Leeds away this Friday is the perfect opportunity to
produce just that. It’ll be tough without Josh Charnley, and perhaps one or two
others, but I think this game is going to tell us an awful lot about the rest
of the season ahead.
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