You must have missed Wane's bleating over the missing players he will have in Denver when they play Cas next weekend then, despite being more than happy with the timing of the rearranged game when it was annmounced

I’m probably one of the most upbeat of supporters but my initial reaction leaving the ground, Friday, was that top four had gone. Going into the game, I thought it was a “must win match” to realise top four status. Looking at it now, I think the only team we might snatch fourth off is Warrington. Cas and Wigan play there game in hand next weekend, that should show us what we have to do. Think Friday was a game to far, I did say on another thread that we were Wigans “perfect storm” but the players did enough to win, a couple of dropped balls on the line, didn’t help. I’m still upbeat and will clap them off the pitch as always, but reality is reality, it’s going to be bloody hard but this team is made of stern stuff when they’re up against it. Winning nine on the bounce against top eight opponents is hard for a full strength team but heyho. COYH, and after Saturday “in any kind of weather”

Saturday certainly didn't help, but there's loads of rugby still to be played yet, 12/13 rounds of it, plenty of time to get some bodies back and make ground on the top4.

Disappointing result in spite of effort but the youngsters are going to need a break soon as we are asking an awful lot of them. I think we are doing ok considering injuries but we do seem to shoot ourselves in the foot with errors and discipline which appears to be the norm. Still think we are not out of it as we have mainly winnable games to come when teams above us are playing each other and therefore dropping points. As long as we are in touch with top 4 at end of regular season we have a chance of GF bearing in mind the playoffs are mainly 4 pointers. People say we are a better knock out team that will be the time to prove it.

Karen, I didn’t see Wanes complaint regarding the criteria of the international in Denver, and having players unavailable because of this particular game is not what I was referring to, although I do see his point of view, perhaps the planning, or re scheduling games could have been fairer.

I was identifying how well Wigan have coped with numerous young lads playing because of injuries to their squad, as we are doing now, we have also reached this standard, using the likes of Downs, Logan, Masi, Litten, etc and they are indeed our future, not excuses.

Regards

I'm not sure I've seen Radford use injuries as an excuse either.

A few fans have, but this was also the case with Wigan fans this year

Dave K I never said Radders had used excuses, Incorrect sir, some fans perhaps, never our leader.

4th is still a possibility a tough ask granted but it only takes a couple of results to go our way and its back on. As long as we are within 2 pts of 4th come the split we still have a good chance of making the GF Semi's with fresh full team out.

That said we really need to work on our intelligence over the next 2 weeks as we should have won that game had we played smarter in the 2nd half, all we had to do was complete our sets and kick to touch, boring maybe but would have meant Wigan continually having to come from deep in slippery conditions. Instead we kept gifting Wigan cheap ball in our own half and blew chances to score ourselves.

Also think Radford needs to take some of the blame as putting Logan at FB I think cost us too as would have been better putting Connor or Carlos at FB and Logan in at centre.

Our defence against a very good Wigan back line was very solid on Saturday. Playing Logan in our threequarters would have been a risk - he hasn't the best defence in the world, and putting him to fullback was the least disruptive option - just a player swap. He didn't let the side down at fullback, the one obvious error he made could have happened where ever he was playing.

Think having Logan in a position he plays would have been a better option as he showed in the Salford game he can defend well in that position. I'm not blaming Logan either but feel having to put someone at FB would have been better served with Carlos or Connor who have both played that role and been comfortable in it.