Play Off Preview #4 - St Helens vs Wigan - This wasn't supposed to happen?!

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This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This wasn't how it was supposed to be at all. Wigan weren’t even supposed to make the play offs. They certainly weren’t supposed be one win from two games away from making the Grand Final. This wasn’t supposed to happen when they were docked two points on the eve of the season. This was surely impossible when Warrington disposed of them in late-May at the Magic Weekend, when Wigan were languishing in 9th spot.

This certainly could not have happened in 2019. Not in the same year that St Helens comfortably beat Wigan on Good Friday. Remember that game? Lachlan Coote leapt above Zak Hardaker and ran under the Wigan posts to cap off a 36-10 win. The St Helens fans were jubilant and taunted their rivals with chants of “going down” as the Wigan fans headed to the exits.

Far from going down, Wigan are now 80 minutes from Old Trafford. Backed by a travelling army of at least 2,750 fans, they travel to St Helens knowing that a win will put them in their 6th Grand Final in 7 years. And this is game that many are struggling to call.

St Helens have beaten Wigan on all three occasions that they have met this season and finished 16 points clear of them in the league table. Come Friday night, this counts for nothing.

St Helens have been excellent all year. Their attack can be blistering, spearheaded by the Coote, Lomax, Roby axis. What goes under the radar is their defence, which has more resilience than is credited for. Since their defeat at Wembley, they have conceded only two tries in three games.

However, they have two weakness. One, they make a lot of errors. Since (and including) the Challenge Cup Final, they have made an average of 17 errors per game. If they do so on Friday, it will prove difficult for them to win.

The second is a historic poor record in pressure matches. When they have been under pressure by a determined opposition, they have a tendency to panic, make errors, fall behind their opposition and fail to recover. If Wigan score the first try on Friday, that pressure will crank up further.

The worst possible opponents to make errors against are Wigan. They are relentless. Any given September, you know what will happen. They find a way to win. Any way. It doesn’t matter. The quality of their defence ratchets up as they mercilessly choke the life out of their opponents’ game. Wigan have done this for years with success.  

The greatest compliment to them is that all opponents know what is coming yet nobody has yet found a consistent way to counter it. For these reasons (and predicted rainfall), a low-scoring attritional battle is almost a given. And predicting an outcome almost impossible. 

 But Wigan's task is unenviable. They travel to a side that has not lost a home match all year and were comfortably the best team in the regular season. Wigan will still require a season-best performance to win, although they are capable of delivering it.

Whilst this game is hard to predict, the likely outcome of the play-off series is that these two sides will meet again in two weeks at Old Trafford. But this will not be a phony war. These two sides don’t do phony wars when they meet. It will be a battle, but the real war may still be to come…

Team News

One change for St Helens, with Aaron Smith replacing Matty Costello. With doubts over the fitness of James Roby, it would not be a surprise to see Smith taking a bench spot.


Also one change for Wigan with Oliver Partington replacing the injured Dan Sarginson (who did not play last week). Doubts persist over Sam Powell who suffered a wrist injury last week.

2019 Previous Meetings

Thursday 31 January - St Helens 22-12 Wigan


Friday 19 April - Wigan 10-36 St Helens

Friday 12 July - St Helens 32-10 Wigan




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