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Daniel Anderson Column - Sean is playing with a great deal of confidence
Sunday night's Millennium Magic game against Wigan went as well as we could have possibly expected and we gave the sort of performance that had been brewing for a while.
We were ready to play and both myself and a lot of the players felt we were going to give it' to some team and Wigan were unlucky to be there at that time.
Having got our big players back and training well there was a real bounce in the camp and that resulted in a great performance - although you can only play what is in front of you.
By Wigan standards our opponents will be pretty disappointed with their effort in the first half because some of our tries were pretty soft, particularly the first two.
Francis Meli's try, our third of the match, broke their backs and I felt they did give up a little bit from then.
Wigan paid the price of not playing to the whistle on that try because they had enough players around Francis to make the tackle - they just failed to do so. Although there were some grumbles, it could not have been offside because the ball was knocked backwards. The ball hit Willie Talau and floated back about four metres, so it was play-on and nothing wrong with the try. The tries following those openers were more technical and classy and there were plenty to pick from and a range of skills on show.
Willie Talau's try, for example, was a classy finish to a set, with Lee Gilmour going through off a great pass from Sean Long and drawing the defender in.
For the last four weeks we have been consistent in our performance and have been prepared to play 80-minutes to win a game. We only had to play 50 at the weekend and other than the ankle injury sustained by Paul Wellens late on it has been a really good game for us.
With the game wrapped up at 35-0 at half time I did start looking ahead about what was the best way of proceeding in terms of looking after the players for next week.
I gave Jon Wilkin a breather and replaced him with Mike Bennett. Leon Pryce has missed the couple of weeks previously with hamstring tightness, so I wanted to get him off as soon as we had the opportunity.
Similarly with Sean Long, who in the absence of injured Matty Smith and Kyle Eastmond is our only fit half back at the club.
In the time he was on the park though, Sean was awesome, scoring 27 points including a hat trick of tries and playing with a lot of confidence.
You cannot get the ball off him when he is like this. If you look back at 2005 and 06 he did not want to kick goals, but now he wants the ball all of the time.
Jon Wilkin scored his try from 70 metres out - underlining why he is the quintessential dry weather footballer.
He is a lightweight back rower - very skilful and has some very subtle changes in direction and speed. In the sloppy, boggy conditions he does not have the weight to go head to head with blokes and now that it is drying up he is starting to find some form.
We have a lot of players here like that. In the same bracket you can throw in fellow back rowers Chris Flannery, Paul Clough and Lee Gilmour.
Across the board we are starting to play better.
At the start of the year we were down on personnel and had to play light in wet and heavy conditions and although we did our best, it was tough for our pack. Now the conditions are improving, and I have also got big men Jason Cayless and Keiron Cunningham playing alongside each other, which has only been possible for the last two games.
Having those players back also means that I have either James Roby and Keiron coming off the bench to make our assault on our opponents even more relentless.
Looking ahead to this Saturday afternoon's Challenge Cup tie against Warrington - having met two weeks ago, both sides have plenty of intelligence on each other.
The issue that we have to be aware of is not being over confident and cocky.
We have to prepare diligently and be respectful because we Warrington are a dangerous team.
Saturday's result depends on the intangibles - effort, commitment, attitude and enthusiasm and if show all those we are going to be hard to beat.
We can play better than we did last time we played Warrington and likewise they will have to find that little bit more than last time around.
Although we have won the Challenge Cup for the last two years we do not view it as defending our cup, rather our mentality says we have won it and now we want to win it again.
We fully understand that it is a knockout game with no redemption for errors and losses. We enjoy the challenge of a knockout game and know that there is a bit of tension in it and players play with a bit more anxiety. It should be a tremendous cup-tie.
I would like to thank our fans who travelled to Cardiff to support us last Sunday.
A vocal crowd, especially away from home is much appreciated.
11:13am Thursday 8th May 2008
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