If i was a Wire fan i'd be more worried about how tired they looked last night. We've seen it happen with Saints, backing up in the playoffs after winning the cup is just so difficult these days.

You seriously think they looked tired????...





To be honest, I think they were just outplayed by a side who were more hungry for the win.....If they were really tired they wouldn't have restricted Saints to just 4 tries.



What you actually saw was a prime example of how important a dominant pack is in Rugby League...Think back to Wembley and how great a player Briers looked behind a rampant Wire pack and then look at Briers last night behind a pack going nowhere. Similarly, Matty Smith looked a half decent player and gained a lot of plaudits (slightly overdone on Sky, mind you), playing behind Graham & co.



You can build up individuals all you like, but having a good, strong pack is still, and always will be, the major recipe for Rugby League success.

And you can do down halfbacks but it wouldn't matter how dominant your pack was, if there was no-one to organise and trigger the attack, it would just be a lot of bluster.



The key to a good game of rugby league is to have the whole team playing in a cohesive way and for mine last night was the first time this season that I have seen Saints playing such a dominant role in a match and in such a controlled way. I put that down to Matty Smith. The pack allowed him to do his job, but he still did his job. And also, our back three of Wello, Gardner and Foster were fantastic at rescuing us from dodgy situations at various points. The only player for me who did not pull his weight was Meli.

So home advantage isn't significant in an elimination semi final?



Looking at your fans and players last night, it didn't seem to be an irrelevant fixture to the vast majority of them.

The whole system is just designed to give Sky more matches for their schedules.



I personally believe it would be better to go with an elimination contest straight from the off, preferably in an old-style Premiership method of 1 v 8, 2 v 7, etc, thus cutting out this ridiculous situation where we could easily see a repeat of this weekend's fixtures in a fortnight's time.

Only problem is that the advantage of how high a team finishes in the regular season would be even less than it is now. I think you have to reward a team better than a sort of cup plays with some slight seeding. At the moment finishing in the top 4 is a major advantage and so it should be.

...The system I mentioned does reward the higher placed side by giving them home advantage??...It also eliminates the possibility of sides meeting more than once and also makes all games knock out matches.

You guys and Wigan both have a real chance of your season ending next week. Ours cannot.



You both face away games even if you progress.



And you don't think this round has been relevant?

And both sides also have a second bite at the cherry, which some may argue you don't deserve in knock out rugby.



Where would be the justice if Wire were to beat the Giants, then Saints at Knowsley Road??.....Saints would be eliminated after losing just 1 game, Wire would be in the final after losing the same amount??...

Exactly the same argument applies with any play off system. A team finishing other than top is likely to have lost less than the rest of the team in the mix.



The play offs aren't knock out rugby. Everyone knows this before a ball is kicked.



However, had Saints lost on Friday we'd not have made the Grand Final. Confidence would be shot, players clearly needing a rest, another 80 mins of bruising play off rugby to play and an away game for the elimination game if we made it there.



Now we have every chance, just a home game to win with a rested squad and hopefully an injured player or two will have recovered enough to throw them into the mix.



Friday was HUGE for us. And I'd wager that, to most connected to the Warrington club, it was pretty big for you too.

Actually I quite enjoyed a certain team losing on Sunday night, and for the past 24 hours I've been laughing at some of the unfair and disgraceful comments from their fans on various sites.

As to our own performance on Friday, we did look tired, but Saints adapted to the conditions well and were worthy winners. Well done Saints.

Its a team effort, as they say, the forwards carry the piano and the backs play it.