Originally Posted by
Gray77
Not strange at all. Wigan are the enemy, our oldest and most important rival, but there is history there and a mutual respect about what the other club means in the game. We both want to pulverise the other, but neither of us would want the other not to exist and not be there to pulverise!
Warrington on the other hand were always a local irritant, further down the pecking order of glamour games in the 80s-90s than Widnes and Leeds, and even Hull at times. Then they started punching their weight and started provoking rivalries that only existed at a low level. They have succeeded though, because the rivalries they now have with us and Wigan have grown, but unlike the Saints-Wigan rivalry there is no respect at all on any side. Wire don't have the class and the history to back the rivalry up, and for their fans it's all about getting one over on us now because there is nothing historic that they can throw at us, whilst Saints and Wigan fans both look at them as johnny come lately's who aren't really on our level historically.
So, there is something far more annoying about losing a Cup Final to Wire, even though they aren't our biggest and most famous rival. They'd love to be, they'd dearly love to have the history and the gravitas to be, but their stature and size simply don't stand up to the scrutiny. If they had 5-10 years of mediocrity we'd look at them as a local irrelevance. Look at how irrelevant Widnes became to us, and they actually have a history of winning league titles, world club championships etc in the last 30 years. Wire would follow in the same guise, but have a few more loud mouthed fans still trying to provoke us long after we'd moved on.
But, when Wigan were crap a while ago and we were winning everything we still treated them as the enemy. Wigan have earned the hatred we have for them. Wire haven't. Big difference