Wigan Warriors defeated Catalans Dragons to claim their sixth Super League title in their 12th Grand Final.
They were undoubtedly the better team on the night as they claimed the crown but were helped along by the fact Catalans spent 20 minutes down to 12 men.
Though coach Steve McNamara questioned one, he accepted Tom Davies’ and that his side were second best.
He said:
“Two teams ferociously going at each other for 80 minutes to concede one try in the grand final and get beat that’s tough to take, you know, but we didn’t throw enough at the opposition in attack.
“Some of that was probably down to the fact that we spent 20 minutes with 12 men and fought ferociously hard to defend our trial round during that period with 12 men against a team like that.
“It just took probably too much out of us and the second half I don’t think we had one good ball attacking set which is credit again probably to Wigan’s kicking game there so there’s a couple of things there for us.”
On the yellow cards, McNamara said:
“It was very draining and we were coming deep out of the yard. It’s credit to Wigan, you know, they put us there and we got out of there but we weren’t getting enough field position to then squeeze it back on the opposition.
“I thought we defended great, to defend like that in a grand final is what you do need to do. I said before the game you need to be, you know, good’s not good enough to win a grand final. I thought we were excellent in defence but poor in attack in our last play.
“So we just didn’t put the two parts of the game there together to go on and win that. It’s hugely, hugely disappointing for us as a team.
When asked if he took issue with either, McNamara said:
“First one, yeah. Second one’s probably professional fouls, so probably goes. The first one, yeah, I don’t think it’s a yellow.”
He went on to suggest it was inconsistent with the semi-finals: “Not in the grand final. Not what we’ve seen in the other semifinals and everything else.”
