Originally Posted by
DD
I've deliberately not read them, so I couldn't be influenced. :-)
In the end, I thought it was a brilliant performance. They went out with the attitude that if they weren't going to win the Grand Final, then neither were we, but we stood up to them, weren't intimidated by them and in the end our depleted forward line completely bossed them.
In the second half, we played some great rugby, opened up and tore them apart. There is no doubt that it was our best performance of the season. The players did everything asked of them and they implemented the plan perfectly. A 9 out of 10 performance.
BUT
I didn't see anything I didn't know before deep analysis led me to post in depth about why we could beat anyone else, but Wigan and/or Warrington would undo us on the big occasion.
Something I've said ad nauseum now since May is that we only decide to play rugby when the game is won. In the first half, we plundered it down the middle, making few or no passes. it was conservative rugby all the way. Yet the one time we did move it out wide, we scored. With the the luck of the early second half try killing the game and another shortly after, we suddenly started to move the ball about and offload, and you know what, it suits us. We are great front runners because when we express ourselves we are untouchable in this country.
However, the coach does not allow us to express ourselves until well clear. Therefore, this means that when we are in a close battle, we don't get to that stage where we do express ourselves, we get stuck in a midfield slog, and the lack of creativity from the halves near the line means that we don't have the tools to win that slog.
It's all on the coach. If he allows our backs to play, then we will win next week. However, I think we all know the drill by now. He will only allow the backs to play when we are more than two scores in front and that's not going to happen against them. To beat Wigan, you can't just plough it down the middle, you've got to use the backs and hurt them by moving the ball. Watching us all season, I know how we are going to play it, and I fear that methodology will see us lose and come out wondering what would have happened had we just been a little bit more adventurous and played to the strengths of a 1,2, 3 and 5 that are as good as any in Super League.
I'll, of course, be delighted to be proved wrong. :-)