I'm not sure there are any redeeming features from that performance. Undoubtedly the worst of the Maguire reign. Everything just seemed to be off. The best defence in SL wouldn't expect to be conceding tries like the first two. I'm going to watch the game back now just to believe how many missed tackles, poor passes, knock ons and dropped balls I saw tonight.
Alibert is truly awful, neigh, useless. Quite how he gets to referee any game let alone ones of the stature of a world club challenge or Wigan V. Warrington. Don't get me wrong I Don't think the result in either match would have been different. The drop out that needed Bentham to over rule him and the use of the screen for wires obvious no try proves his incompetence.
Finally, Warrington were very good and out played us in every department. I didn't think there was anything to split us last year but at the moment they've got the edge.

It would have been a MUCH closer game. The Hoffman try, the Hoffman strip, the professional foul on Leuluai (I think), and on Goulding. The list goes on. He's a clown. Like the Dragons, Warrington took full advantage of it.

Forgot to say in my Albert rant surely his appointment and continued use despite such poor performances confirms his existence is just tokenism to have a French ref in SL.

We were outplayed by a side in much better form tonight and they're looking good. We have plenty of work to do especially with the ball as I don't think we've hit top gear in that department in any game so far but it'll come as we get some settled combinations and get some of our big game players back. I have no worries about us going forward and as dissapointing as it is to lose you don't win any trophies in March.

One thing is for sure though and thats that Wire will be there at the business end of the season and it will take a good side to beat them(as it will take a good side to beat us come sept/oct).

No arguements with the result tonight. The better team won. We lost it in the forwards for my money. They out muscled us up front. I said before the game we had to match them down the middle and defend well out wide. We lost the middle and they targeted young kids. They played the perfect tactics tonight.

It's a long season though. A defeat like that re-focuses everyone. We'll meet them another couple of times this season I'm sure and we'll be better.

Well played wire

Outplayed in all departments, i wouldnt say any performance was shocking it was just poor across the board. The score could have been higher against us easily, which is rather worrying.

Additionally Our home form is very worrying, weve not had a really strong performance at home against a good side since Noble left

We look a totally different side at home to away don't we and it's something we could do with addressing as our winning run away from home won't last forever.

what? that was the video ref, he clearly had to go upstairs with it. was clearly a knock on, just a question of who to give the ball to. christ, even clarkey wasn't complaining with the decision. the strip was horrible but all referees get some of those wrong week in week out.

someone mentioned the first disallowed try, replays showed it was a good decision. finch's try might well have been a knock on, but i don't think the camera angles would have been good enough to overturn it, and i certainly don't begrudge him for making the quick, confident decision.

he did make a really bad string of errors around the 55-60 minute mark (nearly all against wigan) but up until then it was a pretty competent display i thought.

Completely outplayed in every department by a team who on that performance look like the champions elect. Only consolation is that it's early doors, we've got players to come back and a lot can change between now and October.

Wore were by far the better side tonight and thoroughly deserved their win. We defended well enough in the first half but they spent a lot of tome on out=r line and it took a lot of juice out of our tank.

Then add to that our very bad mistakes on attack in those first 10 minutes of the second half and the result was inevitable. 100% for effort but 50% for composure.

Anyone looking to blame Alibert needs to take the Wigan specs off tbh. He's an awful ref as we all know but he wasn't to blame for our defeat in the slightest. We were well beaten by a better side on the night and we need to learn some lessons.

Alibert is out of his depth for sure but that stands for both sides. He always looks to his linesmen or listens in his ear for people to help him ref the game and when he does try to make a call on his own he usually gets it wrong but hey ho with a ref like that you will always win as many as you lose. It's not ideal but all teams have to put up with him.

A few things from my point of view:

- Wire ran our defence all over the park. They were playing a much wider game early on to go around our narrow sliding defence and spotted every time they had a numerical advantage - several of us in the crowd spotted their overlap before the ptb for Monaghan's second try. Their dummy lines and options were far better than ours and ran us ragged.
- In attack we looked devoid of fresh ideas - we were trying to squeeze sweeping moves into narrow spaces and it was never going to work. Wire ran the moves we normally do so well fantastically.
- Contested high balls - it's a bit of a lottery at times but I don't think we won a high ball challenge all game.
- Poor hands - the ball just wasn't sticking today. It happens.
- Terry Halibut is shocking. He reversed a drop-out decision to a handover to Wigan following pressure from the crowd - now, right or wrong, he should stick with his decision or go to the vid ref immediately. He missed loads and was equally bad for both teams. Simply not good enough.
- Marsh - offers nothing whatsoever. Can he actually pass?? Give Charnley a shot at centre and stick Marsh on the wing where he'll be another Goulding - unspectacular but solid. At the moment he renders his side useless.

Wire were on fire, we were horribly poor, the better team won and no complaints. That said we had 3(?) tries disallowed and were well in the game for the most. I'm not too disheartened - with our first-choice lads back we'll match them no bother.

Well played Wire.

Are you kidding? I thought Wigan have some excellent attacking structure, your decoy runners cause defensive huge problems and the only thing that impressed me more than the attacking line was the way the Warrington defence coped with it tonight, play that game again any other night with the same 17's and the result could be very different.

Well done Warrington was better team tonight just about in all aspects. Was a poor performance from our boys but i'm sure we'll bounce back.

IMO game could have been alot closer with some dodgy decisions going our way. First try disallowed was debatable when Hoffman was contesting for the high ball and then at 18-6 Hoffman went over and Briers definatley had his hand in he didnt make any attempt to make the tackle just attacked the ball. Also the strip on Hoffman when we was attacking which was completely blatant. Carmont 1 on 1 with Blythe nothing wrong with that at all. Then onto Westwood ? why was he not given a yellow for throwing a good 3-4 punches at Sam Tomkins who hadnt done anything and didnt retaliate, if that had been Joel Tomkins lettin lose throwing punches at Briers/Myler i'm pretty sure he would of been given his marching orders. Besides all of that i'll admit Warrington were still by a fair distance the better team and definatley deserved their victory.

One last note is how pathetic its becoming the constant bagging of Wigan for our tackling technique. Briers tried to use it just before h/t when McLlorum was tackling Solomona whining trying to persuade alibert that he was twisting his ankle. Was nothing in it at all and it was pathetic from briers very much in the Jon Wilkin mould.

Lackluster, lethargic and lack of aggression sums it up for me. Wire were good, but thank god they weren't superb. Our poorest performance under Madge for mine.

My thoughts exactly. That should not take anything away form Wire who outclassed us pretty easily I thought.

I think this will remind people that while youngsters like Charnley can have very good games in their first full season in the first 17 when it comes to the big games against the better sides experience counts for a lot.

He went for two balls on the last tackle that had he let the winger take there was nothing on. He should have tackled the player having let him take the kick and the pass. This just shows his inexperience with him not reading the game well and that is all it is, inexperience. It would be criminal if he go labelled as Ainscough MkII in the back of that game.

It's also when the situation with Gleeson shows how it hurts the team. It's one thing to have to cope with Richards out but that is sport, injuries happen, but its galling to think we were fielding another inexperienced player needlessly.

I don't think there are many positive to take form a Wigan point of view but I think Amos needs to start next week at 1. He looked fully fit and quite sharp but only came on to give Finch a rest so it wasin't even a tactical substitution to change things around IMO. Sam at 1 has run its course for me.

Agreed

Don't forget we're missing King, Atkins, Anderson and Riley. There's 4 of our starting lineup.

Either way the return game will be another great advert for RL I'm sure!

Completely outclassed and outcoached tonight. Smith had obviously done his homework and our plays were pretty much all telegraphed. Our pack was outmuscled (am i the only one who's been really disappointed by Lima?) and we made some very bad calls in defence. Charnley had an absolute mare which didn't help either. We could have played for another 40mins and still wouldn't have scored. Most clueless we've looked under Madge.

I don't think anyone is looking to lay the blame for defeat at Alibert feet. It's just a thread about tonight game seems the right place to say how useless tonights referee is on a regular basis.

He's fit aint he pretty sure Smith chose to go with Evans instead.

Fielden, J.Tomkins, Pat Richards, Gleeson, L.farrell and Hock to return before end of season. Slight difference imo.

Riley wouldn't get in your first choice 17 but I get your point(it's like us saying we were missing O'Carroll).

Injuries were no excuse for us tonight. We were beaten by the better side on the night and a side in much better form. We're quite a way of our best at the minute but it'll come.

Firstly, Wire deserve a lot of credit tonight. Their attacking and defence was outstanding and I was very impressed with how they went about their business, they exploited our weakness which was our left hand side. I can't fault our lads for effort. A lot of things we did just didn't come off, a bad day at the office. It'll be interesting how we go on next week, under Madge we haven't lost 2 games on the bounce so I'll be expecting a massive improvement from our lads.

Not at all, Lima is crap.

How is he? he runs the ball in hard, wins the ground to get the fast play the ball and hits hard in defence. Much better player than Feka and does twice the work.