Another winnable game next week, they’re in shocking form and we’re in good form, didn’t pick any injuries up (from what I can tell) there’s a few changes I’d make however

Hardaker
Marshall Sarginson Gildart French
Williams Leuluai
Flower Powell Clubb
Isa Farrell Smithies

Partington Bryne Greenwood Sammut

Budgie should be dropped imo, been poor for 2/3 months now and giving French that left wing spot will show him he’s not guaranteed a start

Agree with your selection. Greenwood to do a spell at prop and Partington spelling LF.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Clubb missed out though with concussion.

Our best bet for this one lies in Wire being at Wembley a week later.

Very few teams can focus easily under those circs.

But we'll still need to up our game. Let's not pretend that we weren't crap for much of last night.

I commented to my mate on Friday Partington seems to be making a lot of calls he was stood close to the play the ball directing player's.

Hardaker
Marshall Sarginson Gildart Burgess
Williams Leuluai
Clubb Powell Flower
Isa Farrell Partington

Subs
Navarette Byrne Smithies Greenwood

Last chance for Burgess for me with him being told in no uncertain terms there must be an uplift in form to keep his place. We need the determined, fired up, busting a gut Burgess from before he signed his new deal.

Hardaker
Marshall
Sarginson/Hankinson
Gildart
French
Williams
Sammut
Clubb
Powell/Leuluai
Flower
Farrell
Isa
Smithies

Naverette
Partington
Byrne
Greenwood

I'd go with Sammut at 7. The last time he started at 7 we were 18-0 up after 15 mins.
After match comments usually are "we need to start quicker" well we started quick against Wakefield.
Against Hull and HKR we started slow, were predictable and both FC and Rovers were point for point with us, FC for 75mins Rovers for an hour.
I'd prefer Sammut to start but Lam won't start him. Tommy at 7 with the usual slow start and Price being able to know how we'll play when he arrives to work Monday morning.
Lam knows how French can play and what he offers so lets hope it can work out for us.
We'll have to play a lot better than we did v Hull and HKR to get the two points so here's hoping.

Our attack really is chalk and cheese with Sammut in the team, any defensive frailties he might have have got to be outweighed by his organising skills, kicking game and running threat.
We won't grind win out against Saints and they're the ones we're eventually going to have to beat.

Sammut has also never had a run of games at #7 so virtually impossible for him to build up any form. He's looked impressive considering he's only played in fits and starts.

Defensively he's a million miles away from Leuluai though. Plus its difficult to drop Powell at the moment so I can understand how its difficult for Lam to get him in the side.

No French NK? I thought he looked very lively on Friday and we may need him, especially if Budgie's form doesn't improve.

I just felt it would be a waste of a bench spot in such a big game. It felt like Friday was all about getting him in run out in a game they felt they’d win but he’d either have to start in place of Burgess on Friday or miss out for me. Lammy said he’s not comfortable putting him in at fullback or in the halves yet as he’s learning all the calls.

Burgess frustrates the life out of me because he’s so talented yet his application needs to be better but I’d give him one more go and make it clear we need a performance.

I fancy us to win on Friday and I think we’ve got a good chance to win out the rest of the season, just need Wire and Hull not to and we will get second place which seemed inconceivable a couple of months back.

Hardaker
Marshall Sarginson Gildart Burgess
Williams Sammut
Clubb Powell Flower
Isa Farrell Greenwood

Subs
Navarette Tommy Smithies Partington

Big question is ... Will Warrington rest players for the Cup final or will they look to keep 2nd place?

It's a tough dilemma for them isn't it? On the one hand, I think they desperately need a bit of form to go into the cup final and they can't afford to lose 2nd spot, because if they do, they may well lose out on 3rd as well and I think the teams in 4th and 5th have no realistic chance of reaching Old Trafford. So, logically, they should go all out for this one. On the other hand, Saints have an utterly meaningless match against Leeds, so they may well rest players. It leaves Steve Price with a bit of a conundrum. Hopefully, it all works out in our favour, because I think we really need to win this match to maintain our chances of a top 3 finish. Win this, I think we are favourites for top 3, lose and we could see ourselves 4 points behind both Hull and Warrington, with only 4 to play - it's a big ask then.

Yes I hope Warrington lose both games ..... heavily !

We are in a position where we can just as easily finish 2nd as 7th (or anywhere in between).

I think the biggest difference between the Hull KR game and the beginning of the season is confidence. We have that going into the Warrington game and they are floundering a bit, this gives us every chance though we will need to be better than last week.

You ought to win on Friday as Warrington will rest, or not risk players. The best shot of giving Saints a game, and some how scraping an unlikely win to gain silverware, outweighs two league points in my view.
Not saying in any way that the points aren't important, however, I Expect to see a team similar to the one beaten by Saints last week.

To be fair that team gave Saints a decent game, play like that and they have a decent chance if we play like we did on Friday.

Disagree , this Wigan team has suddenly got a sniff of something as seen many times before , OT is certainly in their sights and I wouldn't back against you

I doubt Wigan will be resting the equivalent of Coote/ Roby/ Percival/ Walmsley/ Knowles/ Fages or leaving key forwards on the bench for unusually long periods though.

Wigan comfortable win unless Wire go all out with strongest available side.

I think resting too many players two weeks on the bounce at the expense of momentum won't be very clever from a Wire pov but time will tell!

It depends who Wire elect to rest and who they play. I honestly think Wire are massively ahead of Wigan this season, massively. With Saints being a good bit better than Wire.

I hope I'm wrong, but from the way Wigan play, I think a half strength Wire will beat a pretty much full strength Wigan. It's not about the personnel, it's about the way we're playing.

I'd go as far to say if we played Leeds this week, I'd fear we'd be in for a good smacking.

The way we’re playing has led to 13 wins from 15 games. Some of the wins have been scrappy and some have been gritty. Some have been largely down to poor opposition but the fact stands. We’ve seen glimpses of great attacking rugby and seen some outstanding defence. We’re no longer an easy team to beat and I think you’ll be proved wrong this week. Even if we don’t win, it’ll be a hard, close game and we’ll not be far off.

We have been winning yes, but my post is referring to the void between Saints, us and Wire. Do I think we're capable of beating most teams? Yes, just miles behind the top two, with Saints far in front.
I agree with some of your post, we've seen 'glimpses' of great attacking rugby, which for me is no where near good enough, it supports my point, we need to see consistent great attacking rugby. Additionally you say we've seen 'some' outstanding defence, we have, but again 'some is not good enough to be a GF winning team. We need to consistently good, in a single game for the 80 and then outstanding to beat the top two.

If Wire field half a team we should be putting 40-50 points on them, if it's a close game with a half strength Wire what will a full strength Wire do to us?

Our overall play this season has significantly dropped, it's so visible week-in-week-out. I personally think we have the personal this season to be better than we are.

I pray I'm proven wrong, I pray this is the game we click and run riot, but lets be honest, it would be one giant leap from what we've seen this season.

Don't let the happy clappers rewrite history. We've beaten one team above us all season and been spanked by most of the people we'll need to beat at the business end.

I started to get carried away with our results, but Hull KR brought me back down with a bump. We're a level below a full strength Wire.