The Chair Maker wrote:I thought Wigan should have put a very tired Saints to bed.
Simple fact is they arent a good team.
They played with heart and passion and not a lot else.
Saints were there for the taking, they were like a punch drunk boxer wobbling on the ropes. Wigan just didnt have the punch in them.
Actually, I think that's tosh. While Saints were likely tired, they weren't that tired for goodness sake. If they had have been, then their defence would not have held up as well as it did (Gardner excepting; he really HAS to stop abandoning his post). I think some of Saints problems tonight were to do with Wigan, who were not going to give us breathing space if they could help it (and they more often than not snuffed us out), and to a lesser degree we were playing another version of our team, which puts us out for the first half. Eastmond was back after months out, for instance. Frodsham was just back after injury. We had four young guys on the field and I couldn't work out our line up at one point!
Mainly I think Wigan were the problem. But our defence was outstanding and it was that which won us the game IMO. That and Eastmond's fantastic drop goal, which although I knew something was coming (I saw them line up) took me totally by surprise.
It was fantastic though to have something more like a real derby back again. That's been missing for what seems like ages. Watching the way Wire have gone this season, I was despairing of us having any derby matches at all! So it was great to see some cracking rugby and an edge of the seat ending, even if there were way too many mistakes by Saints for my comfort. What Tony P was thinking when he offloaded a spit away from our tryline, heaven only knows .... (and I don't mean the time when I think he thought he was closer to the tryline than he actually was).
