If golden point had gone the other way, this forum would have been full of post mortem threads saying "Wire will [inever[/i win a Grand Final until we sort out X, Y and Z" with lists of players to be booted out.

And also "Saints fans would never accept this situation - why do we?"

I don't think so to be honest, Burgess said at one point Musgrove has been great for them......and he was so bog standard and still playing really low minutes. He doesn't really have a big impact for his size, but he comes on does a half decent job and allows our other forwards yo hace a break and not be over played.

Not so sure it was exactly put muscled.
Well over the 84 mins.
I would say Saints loaded up. and went to get the unassailable lead perhaps hoping to kick us deep and hold on, and have us make mistakes trying to pull it around by going away from the process.
However us scoring in the last play of the 40 wiped out the advantage.

Vaughan was un-Vaughan-like, perhaps edgy about being over aggressive or clumsy high in the tackles, and perhaps not battle ready after his lengthy absence. A muted impression in the first half, but just about holding fort, as did Musgrove, until our other spelled props returned.

Yates was constantly hitting them with hard runs and the spelling of Philbin kept him punching, Harrison worked hard but seemed to fatigue at the back of his stints.

We can’t afford to let KR hit us with 3 tries in the first half as Saints did, it would be draining to recover that against them.
I’m hoping the extra piece of missing Vaughan, will be the difference on Friday.
Although he’s done it recently, we can’t rely on Musgrove finding another level.

https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... y-off-win/ I am not usually a stats man but a comparison of the stats indicate that we were not out-muscled as much as we seem to think. As normal we fans tend to be a bit more critical of our own players. The tackle bust stats 50/22 are huge. I was one to suggest we had been outmuscled ... must watch the game again. Key Warrington Wolves stats from St Helens play-off win | Warrington Guardian Warrington Wolves’ dramatic eliminator victory over St Helens was a nip-and-tuck thriller – and the game stats reflect that.

https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... y-off-win/ I am not usually a stats man but a comparison of the stats indicate that we were not out-muscled as much as we seem to think. As normal we fans tend to be a bit more critical of our own players. The tackle bust stats 50/22 are huge. I was one to suggest we had been outmuscled ... must watch the game again. Key Warrington Wolves stats from St Helens play-off win | Warrington Guardian Warrington Wolves’ dramatic eliminator victory over St Helens was a nip-and-tuck thriller – and the game stats reflect that.

we were outmuscled in one way, first half, they were making 50/60 metres, probably after contact, and finishing around the 40m line, or further, and then were putting up bombs to try and trap dufty or compete on the 10.

however for the most part we defended him, and got in the way much much better than we have all year, glad to see we have improved on that.

second half we turned up the heat and they weren't making as many 50 metre returns, couple of times we pinned them in their half and they were kicking from their 40, literally that lazy pass from clark for ashton's second was down to us smashing them repeatedly and knackering them out, They were clearly fatigued and making poor decisions, that little kick form dodds, the offload from knowles under the sticks, and how much clark lost his nut after that.

yes we do need to improve for this week, but do not be mistaken, second half, we were different gravy and worked our way back into that game through relentless process.

Complain all you want about drinkwater's kicking game, it went where we wanted it, so the line was there and intact.

Dont be looking for faults, be proud of what we did. Very un Warrington, and that game will be a massive confidence booster.

Re : outmuscled, Burgess himself said at Half time.

“We were losing the physicality, that’s the Saints trademark for the last five six years. They were just beating us to the punch with it and winning the field position battle.

“We just weren’t making great choices. We could have been better but we went in at 16-10 thanks to George Williams."