Whilst I have no doubt Wigan will do a better job than Saints and Wire they won't be able to stop Leeds' tick and pass throughout the 80. Cuthertson had a nice TEN offloads at the DW last month alone. In that game we arguably scored the try of the season, hadn't it been incorrectly chalked off, via offloading flamboyant brilliance.

With Wigan it's almost a race to get the ball wide. With the way that they defend they get up and in so quickly they shut a lot of teams down before they get started but if you get out of that 'Pocket' there are huge gaps to exploit. Les Catalans absolutely destroyed them with Carney throwing out long passes from 2nd receiver.

Twice though this season they have gotten in quick enough to shut us down and get us going backwards. And for me that's where the game will be won and lost, if we are quick enough we will score points, too many for them to live with us. If they are too quick defensively it will force mistakes and give them too much ball in too many good positions and they will grind through us.

Let's hope the ref keeps a close eye on the PTB, Wigan are terrible for slowing the game down to a snail pace .

Also hope our coach puts some faith in Ward. Leaving him on the bench for 70 mins/ the entire game won't help us.

To some extent that'll be determined by our own attitude. If we can play with the pace we have recently even the most lackadaisical ref will start dishing out the pens for holding down. But if we step down a notch mentally and get a bit lazy then that's less likely to happen.

Who is the ref btw?

That's good defending, getting players into the tackle, but can be risky and energy sapping. Two of the teams that Leeds have struggled against this year (Huddersfield and Wigan) are very good at it. All teams have their own way of trying to do it.

Yes, to degrees. But as you mention Hudds and Wigan play a very Aussie style wrestle / smother/ general take as long as the ref will allow to get up. Wire missing Westwood and Harrison helped us keep it fast in that game .

It's no secret that Wigan always try force Leeds into one up ,stick it down the middle rugby.it's dull and plays right into wigans game plan.
If we are going to stand a chance we need to get the ball wide after sucking players in with our offload game. Getting quick PTBs is a must as often as possible, especially early game to tire out the Wigan pack and post early points / get a roll on.

This is where Briscoe can hopefully make a difference compared to the last couple of times we've played Wigan. There's nobody better than him at getting a quick play-the-ball or penalty and putting us on the front foot at the beginning of a set.

Agreed. All the backs need to go looking for work in the early tackles but Briscoe really is a boost to that.

Hope we get Thaler given we had Child last game (though he did much better than usual ) ,any but Silverwood really for this game

we play well we win regardless of what Wigan do or who the ref is

You sound optimistic!. Wigan are due a good performance and we always seem to struggle vs their tactics.