6th June
Saints Vs Wigan Web Warriors (H)Saints take first honours! The Saints fans took the honors in the "fans challenge cup final" between members of the derby rivals� on-line message boards, in the first ever message board match. The weather was lovely. The sun was out and it was warm but, although the players will probably disagree, it wasn't uncomfortably hot. The game began at 3pm, an Saints stormed off into a 6-0 lead in the opening minute of the game. Saints took advantage of their momentum and soon 6-0 became 12-0. I remember after that score the camera man, who was filming the event for a feature on a forthcoming "Rugby League World" programme on Sky Sports came behind the sticks to film the Wigan team and well let's just say the bleep machine will be needed!!!!! Three more tries followed from Saints and 12-0 quickly became 26-0 before half time. Ball possession between the sides was pretty even in the first half but the Saints team took all their opportunities mainly through clean breaks due to what was described as "touch rugby tackling" by the Wigan side. The Web Warriors though did have chances of their own but the Saints defense remained solid. At this time all the money was on Saints. Saints went in at half time with a 26-0 nil lead, and looked good to lift the Challenge Cup. The feeling was that Wigans mistakes that were costing them dear and that they were not spreading the ball out enough. They were playing to much "one out football" as Stevo would say. Now in the second half the Wigan side played much, much better. I don't know what it was but it was a dramatic turn around. Suddenly Wigan were the better side and Saints looked like they were the team 26-0 down. Maybe it was the Wigan Web Babes cheerleading lifting the players? The big hits started to fly in from the Wigan lads and you could really see the passion and their determination to come back, and quite possibly, to win. Unfortunately, Wigan captain Alex Graham (my drums a bin -alex- on the wiganrlfans.co.uk message board) paid the price suffering a dislocated shoulder after a huge hit on one of the Saints lads. Wigan, like Saints had done in the first half, managed to gain the momentum and kept hold of it for the entire second half. They fought back to within four points at 26-22. Shortly before they did that, there was a controversial incident, which could have affected the out come of the game. The Web Warriors broke through and went over the line to score but the referee, from Warrington, pulled it up for a dubious forward pass. With the score at 26-22 after a tremendous effort, you could honestly see Wigan winning but then came the killer blow from Saints. They broke through down the middle and scored underneath the sticks. The ref was unsure about the grounding, so decided to go to the video ref (a fan recording the game on their video camera ) to check. The try was given and Saints took the easy conversion to make the scores 32-22. Wigan didn't give up but the clock was now against them. They got a late consolation try but the conversion was missed and at the final whistle the final score was 32-26 to St Helens. At the end of the game the players shook hands gracefully and despite losing the Wigan side seemed happy with their efforts. If Wigan can produce the second half performance for a full 80 minutes, whilst Saints produce their first half performance, when the re-match happens in Wigan in September, then it will be a must see game. All in all it was a fantastic day and the players got on with each other as soon as the full time whistle was blown. Sky Television were at the event and a feature about the match from Angela Powers was done for Rugby League World.
32 - 26
