The errors and penalties in the opening 15 minutes were mainly Wigan's own doing and that's pretty much the time when Leeds won the game and Wigan lost it. There was no extra intensity or physicality to cause problems at that point, the Wigan players just made some very basic errors again and again.



After that opening period the game was more like the close contest that some though it would be but Wigan always played like they were desperately chasing the game, even when only trailing by 10 points the players just seemed to think they had to keep the ball alive all the time and there was a real lack of composure.



Leeds on the other hand were clinical when presented with opportunities in the opening quarter of the game. A lot of the tries were nothing exceptional but just sensible, well thought out play that caught Wigan when the defence hadn't really got into the game - when the first try was scored Wigan just made the same mistakes again and gifted field position and Leeds just kept on taking advantage of those gifts. The Wigan players needed some good defensive sets early on to settle down but they failed through their own mistakes and the clinical play from Leeds near the line.

its just a good job the game wasn't on sky.

we'd have only heard phil clarke crying in the background..

Phil Clarke's box of tissues was untouched yesterday.

Leeds won, it says so in the paper, enjoy the final...

As good as tomkins is let's not pretend he is radlinski under the ball

The Tomkins spill was anything but an unforced error, it was forced by an excellent high kick which spiralled away from him toward the touchline. Any full back in the world would have struggled with that.



Lest we forget that two of Wigan's tries came from Jamie Jones-Buchanan coming up with soft one-on-one misses because he was too busy trying to anticipate what was going on behind the play and lost the lead runner.

Far from it. It's his big weakness.

JJB was a statue at times yesterday in the defence and Wigan exploited it perfectly.

I've stated this before. Without a doubt it's his achilles' heel.

I've not read all the comments in the thread but I thought the majority of Wigan fans were great in defeat yesterday. I can't speak for others but my friends, family and myself all left the ground and congratulated loads of Leeds fans, even shook a few hands and wished them luck for the final. Not sure what more we could do? After a bad performance from our boys we only lost by 11 points to a good side, I'm sure we'll kick on from this and if we don't we'll no one else to blame but our selves!

Yep, I had not one problem with any Wigan fans yesterday. All the ones I met were perfectly civil, both before and after the game.



In fact, the only really unsavoury stuff came on the very, VERY overcrowded (and late) train back to Leeds when a couple of Leeds fans decided that a suitcase near the door was worthy of having a fight over. Happily their girlfriends/wives calmed them down by telling them to stop being such daft buggers.

All teams look great when the opposition let them play and Wigan are no exception, great sides are able to maintain standards when the pressure is on. In the last two knock games of real significance Wigan have been found wanting, both Saints and Leeds showed up and Wigan couldn't cope. This result says more about Wigan than it does about Leeds - are Wigan like Warrington flat track bullies who cannot cope with real adversity?