In the lead up to the big game on Thursday it would be interesting to hear from Warrington fans as to who their biggest game/rival is thesedays.

Obviously, Widnes are supposed to be your main rival but they are hardly someone you'd aspire to be better than are they. St Helens are right on your doorstep and Wigan not to far away either, so who is your fiercest rival?

Got to be Wigan

for me wigan

I don't get why Widnes have to be out main rivals? Is it something set in stone?

Your main rival are those that you are closet too in terms of geography and performance.

Wigan and Saints are only each others big rivals due to consist standards.
If say Wire had been that dominant team of the 80's and 90's and Wigan had been us, people would say "it's the Wire Saints derby that's the big one"

Of late the Wire/Wigan game has been the benchmark so performance was the key to excitement and the main one.
Saints had tailed off a little and people don't tend to gee themselves up for what they think is a one sided contest.

It also depends on where you lived/ grew up.

The Winwick/Burtonwood lot may see Saints as their main rivals
Sankey/Westbrook may see Widnes
Culcheth could have seen it as Leigh (in the day)
I grew up in Golborne and always saw it as Wigan.

There are many factors, Wigan will generally say Saints and then spout of the mutual success/respect argument and in a similar way to leading politicians not want to share a stage with who they deem a lesser advisory.

Wigan
Saints
Widnes
Salford
Leigh

in order of the local sides for me.

For me and probably anyone over 40 it will always be Widnes.

We don't have a long standing historic rival.

If you survey Warrington fans on who our biggest rival is, the answer will be one of Wigan, Saints or Widnes, I think there would be a fair proportion of votes for each. If you did that survey at different times in our history then you would get different proportions for each.

If you survey Glasgow Rangers fans, Real Madrid fans, Sunderland fans, Tottenham fans on who their biggest rival is, you will just get one answer from everybody, and it would have been the same throughout history.

Our rivalry with Wigan and Saints is never really authentic because their priorities are each other. They are basically in a long term relationship and we are trying to be the bit on the side, sometimes like recently when Saints went downhill a bit Wigan became more interested in us but in the end they are always going to get back together. We will only ever be more obsessed with them, than they are with us.

With Widnes, its the other way round, they are more obsessed with us than we are with them. When they came up in 2002, their first season they beat us 3 times, they finished 8th or so in the league but that season was regarded as their high point probably of the past 20 years, because of those derby wins. Then the next year, when we beat them three times but overall their league form was similar, that was regarded as a difficult season for them.

But its not the same for us. If someone with a crystal ball said they'd seen how our season is going to pan out, the bad news is we win nothing, the good news is we beat Widnes home and away, how many Wire fans will be going ahhh great at least we win the derbies, thats what matters..... true rivalry like Sunderland/Newcastle they would say that

If I had the choice of beating Leeds or beating Widnes I would choose Leeds.

I'm in the over 40s and its been the pies since the demise of the black and whites.

That's Widnes followed then by Hull.

Widnes for me. Whilst the footballing side of things are perhaps bigger against other clubs, no other rivalry has such local bragging rights at stake, with many colleagues and mates of mine supporting the Comics.

How can it have changed?
Historically they are your biggest rivals.
Competition wise they beat you home and away last season.

As another ‘over 40’ I would say Wigan.

Widnes were probably our big rival until late 80s. In the 70s we had some big games against Widnes , who usually came away with the bragging rights in the main. With the success of Wigan from the mid 80s they started to become the main rivals. Widnes entered a period of demise and the rest is history. I enjoyed the first few Wire/Widnes derbies when they got back into super league the first time but now they are just another opposition similar in rivalry to Salford IMO. Historically Leigh were also a big local derby for us but again since Super League began we have played them very little in competitive games.

For me our rivals (for titles) are Wigan, Saints, Leeds and now Huddersfield following their recent years of success. It’s always good to beat the local teams but the big games/rivalry is against the above.