***The Officially Official 'Rugby League in 2023' Thread***

Mike Danson (the bloke who just bought Wigan Athletic) is taking over. He is a mate of Lenegan's, had 25% of the shares for a year or two, increased it to 49% recently and is now taking full ownership. He is a Wiganer and is allegedly worth even more than Lenegan.

A sign of the changing of the guard was Wigan playing a curtain raiser on the main pitch before last night's game. We wouldn't have been allowed to set foot on it other than when we were playing prior to this.

I thought Warrington made a good fist of it for the first 30 minutes. They lost their way a bit after this and Wigan started to play with a bit more discipline (completing, kicking into the corner etc). They had a lot more impact from the bench (KPP and Mago in particular). Warrington are struggling with injuries, but I don't know how their coach is hanging on. A rumour going around is that Matty Nicholson has approached Wigan about going back and has been told that he has burnt his bridges as far as that is concerned.

Typical that HKR are coming back into form jus before the SF, especially as I have tickets for the final now
 
TonyM19 said:
Typical that HKR are coming back into form jus before the SF, especially as I have tickets for the final now
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That's overextending it a bit to be honest. Wouldn't say we are coming back to form, we are spluttering at the moment and it was a hard earned victory over Leeds. I went to the Hull derby last week and was one of the worst quality games I've ever seen. Was gutted we lost, but was probably what we deserved out of the game to be honest.

Getting Batchelor back in the second row is vital for us and our defence on that side improves SO much with him there. Opacic had an outstanding game against Leeds and curious to see whether new signing Schneider can repeat his match winning performances up in the halves. Mikey Lewis been stuttering as of late and becoming very petulant. I like his fiery attitude most of the time, got a lot of the Danny Mags about him, which is a good thing, but he simply has to keep his cool.
 
Well now. What a Challenge Cup weekend that was.

Huge congrats to Leigh and to KR. A hearty chortle at Saints finding it tough going when not being given a leg up by officialdom. And commiserations to Wigan, I know they really wanted to make the final and do the outgoing chairman proud. Just not to be.
 
Really strong rumours that Wigan have signed Tyler Dupree with immediate effect. They had a bid rejected, but the rumour is that Salford approached Wigan to see if they were still interested. Bit worrying for Salford if that is the case. Wigan seem to be filling gaps in their team (new owner flexing his muscles?). An experienced, ball playing 6 would be next on my list. With the best will in the world, Bevan French isn't that. An experienced 2nd row wouldn't hurt either.
 
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I can't believe this sport, even with cameras and a video assistant and they still get basic calls wrong, Makinson made that kick and then a forward pass from Dirty Leeds is allowed to bring them back into the game... Still the first half as well!
 
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GIBURROWS said:
I can't believe this sport, even with cameras and a video assistant and they still get basic calls wrong, Makinson made that kick and then a forward pass from Dirty Leeds is allowed to bring them back into the game... Still the first half as well!
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At least partly made up for with the hilariously forward pass for Saints' second going unchallenged by officialdom ;)
 
Rovers did exactly what they had to do last night beating Cas, who never really looked like they had a sniff of victory. Be interesting to see what Willie Peters does next week against Wigan, one game before the Cup final.

Rhys Kennedy is basically a man reborn. Came with lots of hype but has massively underperformed, that is, until the last 4 weeks or so where he's just been our best prop - up there with George King. Really impressive resurgence.
 
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Kinda saw that coming to be honest. The likes of Salford have been very lucky these past few years in that they play year in year out with paper thin squads and had very few injuries. That seems to be biting a little bit. Its also kind of inevitable with Leigh at some point, they've had so few injuries compared to everyone else.
 
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From what I can make out Paul Rowley held the half time team talk on the pitch? Never a good sign...and I'm a Hull City fan so can remember those infamous Phil Brown days and that Man City away game!
 
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physichull said:
From what I can make out Paul Rowley held the half time team talk on the pitch? Never a good sign...and I'm a Hull City fan so can remember those infamous Phil Brown days and that Man City away game!
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He did. As you say, not a good omen.

***edit***

Gotta hand it to the Salford fans. They came, they engaged, they sang all the way through the match. They didn't deserve to see their team get nil'd.

Truth be told, I'm not sure the team deserved it either. A bit more luck, a bit better execution of some decent ideas, they'd have been in the fight.
 
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