Haha touche!

The reactions late in a game aren’t going to tell you as much as the general malaise in their play for the first hour did or the fact they decided to rest up Dylan Edwards and Liam Martin. They thought they just had to turn up and you saw the panic in them late on when they realised they were in trouble. It probably didn’t help them the NRL heading it as a R2 pre season game and when they looked around the stands and saw the lowest crowd in donkeys years, that can’t have get the juices flowing either.

As I say, it doesn’t take away from Saints achievement, it was absolutely huge and the disadvantages they overcame were far greater than the fact Penrith took the game extremely lightly.

Players don't react like that if they were treating it as a friendly, that's my point. You're implying they didn't care about the result either way. They clearly did.

As I've said many times before, caring about a result is totally different to preparing properly for the game in the first place. They clearly cared. They're professional sportsman and any defeat hurts. They also clearly underestimated the Saints side. That's on them. However their reaction isn't an indicator of how they approached the game which was definitely lacking. In truth I'd be happy if they approached our game in the same way. Unfortunately it doesn't take a genius to work out that they're unlikely to make the same mistake twice.

As NK says, it doesn't detract from Saints achievement in the slightest just as it wouldn't ours if they come into the game undercooked. You can only beat what's in front of you. The team that approaches the match in the best way, wants it more and executes the best will win. That's the same for any and every game. Excuses are for the losers.

I can't quote again for some reason but replaying to YG above-

I saw their reactions and yes they were disappointed. It looked like the realisation dawned on them suddenly that maybe they should've treated the game with a bit more respect. Did they treat it as a 'Friendly' as I described it? maybe that term is slightly downplaying how they treated the game but I can't sit here and lie and say that I thought they treated that game as they would a GF, a Play off game or even a regular season game and if Saints fans want to think they did, I think you're lying to yourselves but I'm not here to change your opinion.

I said earlier in this thread Saints achievement being a fantastic one can go hand in hand with Penrith not showing the fixture the respect it deserves. Hand on heart opinion-I'm certain we'll be facing a more switched on side, they'll not get caught out twice, they'll beat us by 10+ points and Saints will get even more credit for their win last year on the back of it.

I think the defeat last year will certainly motivate them more, but I have the game much closer in my mind. On Wigan soil and already with a league game under your belts; those two things will bridge the gap. Plus I think the Wigan style will worry them. I think you will play expansive and look to surprise them. It won't be the arm-wrestle type "grind" that they're used to. The bookies are only giving Wigan +4 which I think is about right.

I think we’ll push them definitely but maybe with them pulling away late on.

Well they aren’t playing a warm up game this year so clearly aren’t taking it any more seriously this year, and Wigan get to play this game after they have started their SL season so have a bigger advantage.

See - it’s easy to play things down isn’t it! Wigan fans say this is the real deal cos they lost last year but in the same breath say they didn’t care last year so if they didn’t care last year (having lost previous forays into this game), why would they care now?

Well done for doing the Aussie’s job for them re: perpetuating the excuses though.

At least it's factual and better peddling the lie you guys seem to be all in on.

I saw that Matt Shaw said something like "it was one of the greatest ever sporting achievements in the history of RL". That one really made me laugh. I know journalistic integrity in RL has always been non existent, but come on. Really? I doubt even someone like Trump would get away with BS like that.

Fantastic! I hope they're going into it half-arsed again and, come the end of February, we've inflicted two defeats in a row on them.

As I said in my previous post, excuses are for the losers.