These are the marginal ones. I wouldn't swap any of our three for any of theirs, and they wouldn't swap any back the other way.

I wouldn’t swap them either, but there has been something in Marshall’s game and discipline that hadn’t been there quite so profound. His vision and short kicking game had been superb.
I have to say this season he has been better than Ashton. Imo.

Thewlis over Miski this year is fair enough. He's been carrying a knee injury for a lot of this season though, and his 2023 form was outstanding. It remains to be seen if with a full off season he can properly recover and recapture that form, but if he can't I'd expect Eckersley to come in and take his place anyway.

I can 100% see why you'd say that about Williams. I'd still have French in front of him with my Wigan bias, but there's not much that you want from a half back that Williams can't do. Having Smith take responsibility for so much of the organisation gives us the luxury of having someone a bit more mercurial alongside him, whereas Williams probably doesn't really get that from Drinkwater as much as he should. What I'd say though is that French - for all he gets noticed for his individual attacking - has developed into a much more rounded player than I thought possible. When he was out for a couple of months we missed his right-edge defence as much as anything else.

I hope you are right but remember we were 12-2 down at HT in the CCF and Fitzgibbon played the first half. We had a full side out save for Philbin.

On that I think we let the occasion get to us. Other than that Fitzgibbon for me had been our most influential player. I really hope we can get him back like that for the whole season.

Don't get me wrong I think Fitzgibbon is a great attacking 2nd rower.

Re: occasion - I wasn't buying the inexperienced/caught in headlights argument though for our final performance. We had a good number of experienced players all over the field

Rod Tai - International. Played in World Cup
Toby King - International, won a CCF and GF
Ben Currie - already won a CCF
Matty Ashton - International
George Williams - International, GF winner
John Drinkwater - already won a CCF, GF appearance.
Vaughan, SOO, International
Fitzgibbon - NRL GF winner.
Powell - Multiple GF winner
Bullock - GF appearance
Dufty - 90+ NRL games
Musgrove - 70+ NRL games


Wigan were, and are, just better than us currently. I guess Sam couldn't say that at the time. But no disgrace - we are currently (probably) the 3rd best team in SL which is a remarkable turnaround from 20th August 2023 when we were 8 losses on the bounce and at our lowest ebb in recent memory.

Fitzgibbon wasn't fit in that final - one of a couple of coaching mistakes Burgess has made and maybe won't again.

We were dreadful in the final, our worst performance of the season really - it happens. We got to the CC final, finished the season with the best attack and defence and really should've been walking out at OT. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but not resting all those players before Wembley would've seen us finish with the LLS as well. I just had a sneaky feeling we'd have done it at OT - I'm aware that's based on little and Wigan were deserved winners.

For me the gap wasn't wide at all this season I just feel with an inexperienced 7 (whoever it may be) and a Nicholson replacement that can't get into the PNG squad it will widen in 2025. Going to be a real test for Burgess next year.

Agreed. Perspective is needed in the fact that Wigan are 3 years into it with Peet. Burgess has been here one season and we were a penalty kick away from beating Wigan at the HJ which would have resulted in us finishing 1st and winning the LLS. We made the CC final and we were a couple of missed conversions and a dodgy decision over reaching the Grand Final. Lets see where we are after 3 years as the improvements have already been mightily impressive.

Had we finished top or second ,would we have lost the final due to having a week off like at Wembley ?
Perhaps an idea to beat the likes of Wigan ,with a perceived better set of forwards than us, would be to abandon trying to go through them every time & start spreading the ball early in the sets maybe tiring their forwards in the bargain.
As for our new signings , hopefully, the powers that be have found a gem among them. Didn't we sign a bandaged up winger from Oz in the forties who couldn't get a game anywhere....?

One for Cherry Warrior. Was Misky still carrying that injury against Leigh when he was chased down ?I thought he was faster than that or is he a short range specialist ?

The main thing Wire need to do is to keep backing those academy lads and opening up that pathway. Hayes, Lindop, Holroyd, Taylor-Wray etc have been excellent this season and I'm sure there will be more lads behind them good enough for a chance. They will push players within the first 17 to be better and if they themselves are good enough, they'll take a starting shirt.

You can make signings on top of that and try to close any gap but there is only one way of having sustained success and the teams who've had it prove exactly what the formula is. Warrington are far closer to following that formula than HKR for example. I honestly don't see HKR being in this sort of position much longer because there is too much riding on external signings. They're signing 36/37 year olds and it's all being set up for instant success but that rarely works because you need to keep replacing them. If Wire back the kids and make one or two good signings, I think you'll be the team to push Wigan over these next few seasons.