"Wonder what the gameplan from the weakened Wire team will be? They will have a dig no doubt early on but wonder if they will try rattle us into a ill-disciplined performance hoping we may get a ban or two?

If we can get through this game injury free with a win and no bans we will have done amazingly well."

Of course Wigan would never dream of doing anything like that.

The reality is whichever team plays less of their potential 1st team has less to lose if it develops into a bit of Biff or HIA's and injuries come into the reckoning

As it stands (and from what I heard even before the squad was announced from a Wire player source), Warrington will have "Less to lose" from that scenario than Wigan

However
My opinion has and always will be "play the game" that's in front of you to win
What I mean by that is thinking too much about what ifs, worrying about what ifs, making plans for what ifs can lead to over thinking and counter productive outcomes
Fair enough if a player is carrying a niggle then rest him especially if you have a good alternative
Fair enough (as in Farrells case) he's played every minute of every game and at some point due to the minutes per player rule tour going to have to rest at some point it may as well be this game

But, resting for resting can also bring its problems and issues, and those issues may be months down the track when your 2pts or points difference behind in the leage when you then can't rest players that need it because you need wins that could have been picked up earlier in the season

The coaches will have their own priorities
Peet will know what Wigan need to do for the this week, next week and to give them the best chance at the end of the year
I'll back his and the teams decisions with regard to tomorrow irrespective of "What ifs" down the line

We've got arguably the strongest squad in Super League and the next fortnight will see that to the fore.

I fully agree. Sport is about winning and we need to do that tomorrow and at Wembley. The coaches know better than anybody what makes these lads tick. The competition intensifies tomorrow in my view, there are still spots to be had in the 17 that will play at Wembley. I believe that if Wigan produce their ‘A’ game then they win irrespective of any other factors so it is up to Matt et al to make sure that they are ready to perform at their best, if that means resting players or playing our strongest team and risk injuries then so be it. I have no doubt that we will be in for a really tough game at Wembley but at least we will be battle hardened. By the way, Wire have 16 start tomorrow on the coupon, it was originally scratch and Schofield predicted that the home team would win by 8.

Yes, that's fair enough - you can certainly argue it either way, and only hindsight will show what was right. Glad I'm not the coach having to make these decisions this week!

Farrimond playing for the reserves today so we can safely rule him out

Hampshire fullback
Douglas Wing
Eckersley centre
Farrimond 18th man

This the first time Hampshire played FB since his Cas days pre injury?

Not even 20 mins in and Hampshire has given the worst full back performance I think I’ve ever seen, rivalling Jack Murphy maybe but he was only a kid.

And still the biggest surprise is that Byrne hasn’t seen a card (so far).

Hopefully this passes without incident: https://x.com/ppphhhiiillliip/status/17 ... 0VgZg&s=19

Hopefully this passes without incident: https://x.com/ppphhhiiillliip/status/17 ... 0VgZg&s=19

We’re going to end up with a lot of bans on Monday but that’s the risk we took and by the looks of it Marshall is injured. Don’t want to be relying on anything to do with Hampshire either, which I’m now updating to being the worst performance at full back since Nathan Graham in the 90s.

Dupree. I think that just proves how thick a rugby player can be. Nice 4 or 5 game ban there.

This has been a disaster from start to finish.

Crazy stuff today. We might have the result but definitely not the momentum going into next week. Who is going to play right centre? A back-rower?

Eckersley?

Worst performance since Matty Peet took over. And what was Adam Keighran thinking about! Play anything like that next week and we are dead. Burgess learned a lot about us today and Peet learned nothing about Warrington.

Glad to get the two points but advantage Warrington for nest week. Crazy reckless tackle from Keighran. Plenty of cover for Dupree at least.

Red card for me with Keighran what on earth was he thinking

Two points, next week is another game, with different teams...

That match has no bearing on next week whatsoever. AK will receive a ban and rightly so. Eckersley seems the only sensible replacement to me. The lad is big, strong, fast and agile.As for Dupree, I think the incident is being over scrutinised. Anyway, I think Wire should be applauded they certainly took the match to us and, apart from a golden period, had us under the cosh for long parts of that game. It makes for an intriguing contest next week, we might now be underdogs. Wembley will be won by the forwards and we need to get back to what we do best, high completion rate and good field position.

That was a hard watch, several players were really off the pace and playing themselves out of any wembley squad, too many also got suckered into silly plays with the homer ref being only too keen to penalise. Two points gained but maybe the cost was too much , hopefully Marshall and Junior are fit for next week.

Keighran will cop a ban - only mitigation was the tackled player was falling but he made no real attempt to wrap his arm which made it look much worse, under current rules it will be a significant ban I suspect. Shame as apart from that he had a decent game and his goal kicking was on point.

For me I think we will go Eckersley in the centre and with Faz back probably Walters on the bench as cover in the second row and Faz can move to centre if needed. Puts us down one prop on the bench though. Hopefully Dupree does not get anything - as he made a difference when he came on (much better than Byrne who along with Hill may well have played out of the CC squad as neither really stood out).

Strange game to watch. A difficult watch as we got sucked into a real helter-skelter game but my gosh the referee helped. An 11-4 penalty count at the end, our players were visibly frustrated with him. Both Ellis and Leeming gave him a piece of their mind, not like us at all.

On the major talking points, keighran will get a ban unfortunately, Dupree will be fine. On injuries, Marshall and Nsemba looked alright at the end.

One of the few positives we can take from today is that it's reduced the chances of Wire ambushing us at the start of the game next week, our mentality in the first 20 was poor. Hampshire was dire and at fault for 2 tries with positioning. It's all about the first 20 for me next week, we nail the start I think we win the game. Our bench is light years ahead of theirs when we're on.

Edit- I thought Matt Peet was brilliant post match, so honest. The less said about Burgess' arrogant manner, the better. It's the first time I've not liked Burgess with how he came across.

Apart from not losing it’s hard to imagine how that could’ve gone any worse

There’s a small chance looking at Keighran’s challenge that he gets a fine and/or a ban. He’s not gone in with a swinging arm, he’s stood his ground and connected high whilst the player is going down. I still think he’ll be banned but we’ve seen worse this year.