Lets draw a line under the season so far, the cup is gone but we're still one of the favorites for the Super League.

Started off poorly against Huddersfield but most of the team were playing wondering if they'd packed their sun tan cream or if they knew which draw their passports were in.
Decent showing down under and a shed load of invaluable experience for the whole squad.
Great display at Warrington.
A superb day out on Good Friday with some great rugby league played and that pass from O'Loughlin, I can still see it now.
Then demolishing Bradford with a another great display.
Some wonderful displays from the youngsters, Hull away and Salford away what a performance at the Magic Weekend.
The under 19s are going ok, we have re-named the launderette and Judes under 11s won at the weekend.

Castleford the team of the year so far and deservedly so.
Bateman is Wigan's player of the year so far for me.
Peacock nailed on for MOS at moment.

If we can beat Castleford on Friday then Widnes next week we could be second in the league.

Come on keep the faith, ancient & loyal.
Trust in Wane.

Or we could just throw our toys out the pram and sack Wane and half the squad



One thing I'd like to do is give Castleford a huge amount of credit for the way they played on Saturday. We can sit here and look for all the excuses under the sun but the top and bottom of it IMO was Castleford didn't allow us to perform. They were slick with the ball and worked tirelessly in defence and did to us what we've done to many other teams these past few years. I actually quite enjoyed watching them play.

As for us we'll be fine. We've got lads to come back and will use the disappointment to drive a push for Old Trafford. Things are by no means perfect but they aren't for anybody else either. We've got a top squad and a top coach and I wouldn't be surprised to see us at Old Trafford come October.

I agree with that.

Some lessons from Saturday for me. - We miss Blake Green in the big games more than most people give him credit for. Yes Hampshire and Williams are great young players, but they aren't yet as good as Green. Sign him up for next year.

- There are now 6 sides in with a realistic chance of Super League - in my order Wigan/Leeds/Warrington/Saints/Huddersfield/Cas, which is great for the sport. Strangely I think that Saturday's loss will make it easier for us to win the GF (and harder for Leeds/Wire and Cas)

- We have shown that we can beat anybody on our day and would fancy us to win the LLS - starting on Friday. We could be top if we beat Cas and Widnes - if Saints lose in France and Leeds lose to the Giants (not unrealistic)

OK that's a lot of if's but there's still lots to look forward to.

If we're are all honest we were never going to retain both trophies with the squad we currently have, we overachieved last year. Billko has tweeted that we now have a 17 day rest at the start of August. If that is the case, that is brilliant. Our season has been very stop-start in terms of injuries and the WCC and the side have had to rhythm in consecutive weeks. Between now and August Wane needs to find out his best 17 and get all our players got and firing and ready to come back on the 17th August a few weeks before the play offs.

Agree Waney needs to get his best 17 on the field sometime this year, whichever 17 that is!
When he does and they are all fit with their big game hats on they really will take some beating.

I wouldn't say it has been a "great" season, so far.

The WCC was extremely disappointing. We edged games against Catalans and Leeds at Magic (although a decent performance). Awful performances against Cas away and London and Huddersfield at home. Two favourable cup draws and knocked out at the first real challenge. Warrington away was scrappy and an awful game to watch (though good to shut their stupid fans up). Hull and Salford are joke teams so routine wins and Easter Monday was embarrassing even to win.

The only real highlight (in terms of games) has been Saints on GF for me. I'm hoping for a much better 2nd half of the season, and now we only have the SL to look forward to I think we'll finish in the top 2 and hopefully make the final again.

(Glass half-full POV to balance out the OP)

IMO it is the team below and when we can get it out there we'll be fine. Us having a number of players missing at the weekend coupled with a few lads coming back who clearly weren't match fit are the reasons why I don't get anybody questioning Wane or the side.

Our best team IMO-

Bowen
Charnley Goulding Thornley Burgess
Green Smith
Taylor McIlorum Flower
Farrell Bateman Lockers

Subs- Pettybourne Crosby Clubb Williams

A very tough side to beat.

We've done OK in terms of results in the regular season games so far, especially considering the players out. But I'm not sure we've reached our potential in terms of performance enough times. Probably about 3-4 times in the whole year.

Add to that the fact we've lost and underperformed badly in the two real crunch games so far against Sydney and Cas and I'm afraid I can't call it a great season.

What would be good going forward would be if we can keep our run going of at least one trophy every season since 2010. I'd like us to have a real crack at the LLS now we're out of the cup in addition to the GF. It looks achievable considering we've now played every team in the top 6 away from home. It looks a decent run in but having said that, our home form against the top sides is dreadful - we have to sort that out!

Sooner have Sarge and Gelling in the centres off form.

Isn't Thornley out for the season? When everyone returns I'd go:

FB 1 Bowen
RW 2 Charnley
RC 5 Gelling
LC 25 Bateman (I don't trust Goulding or Sarginson to defend there at the moment)
LW 32 Burgess
SO 6 Green (may change in a few weeks if Hampshire gets a run of games to prove himself)
SH 7 Smith
P 8 Taylor
H 9 McIlorum
P 10 Flower
SR 24 Clubb
SR 12 Farrell
LF 13 O'Loughlin

S 17 Crosby
S 22 Pettybourne
S 27 Williams
S 37 Sutton (I know he's only young but he's really impressed me, even against Cas' big pack he seemed to win the collision most of the time and make good metres)

Well said

I would say that Castleford are the most improved team this season (even before Saturday’s game)but as we all know to play every game, even the vital games in top gear is a well-nigh impossible task for any side, and if this wasn’t so the words giant killers would never have been used.

Agreed, it is getting that team out that is the problem. Half of that team have either had injuries or have been playing with injuries when they shouldnt.

Agree with all that apart from id have Sarginson over Thornley. Better all round player in my opinion.

I agree this would be a tough side to beat but a full strength Wire will beat them.

It's fine to be sportsmanlike in defeat but the fact of the matter is, we have gone backwards this season. Some of it is due to our worst injury run for some years but for me bar the wins v Saints and Leeds the performances in the other games where what suggested we would not retain both trophies despite the wins as several were very scrappy against poor sides.

We beat Saints in 2005 with a very young side and our win v Leeds at MM reminds me of that but we won nothing that season so the win at MM while fantastic won't count for a great deal if we don't make at least a decent attempt at defending the SL title because our defence of the CC was just downright poor. Losing to the first decent side we played in the 1/4 finals is not good whether Cas are the most improved side or not.

Maybe not a great season, but I'm enjoying it, and it has been mentioned by another poster that we could be top of the table next Wednesday night, and the Leeds loss tonight helps that cause.

I'm enjoying this season immensely.

Some people just like to moan

Saints currently losing in Catalan. We could go top if we beat Widnes on Wednesday.

42 - 0 to catalans



Come on lads lets put in a good performance and go top

bar a couple of teams i think this has been one of the toughest season in awhile.

Season just got better with the result from France.

i think we will see how serious wane is about the league leader with the squad he plays against Widnes.

The players already knew who was due to play on Friday, Wednesday and Sunday.Obviously injuries have to be taken into account so things will have changed a little now.

Wonder if long neck will show his face, or go missing again as usual?

I don't expect him in the near future.....