The 18th Man...Wigan Warriors cannot show any mercy when they cross the channel to face Toulouse

Darren Wrudd

As the dust settles on another great performance from last week, we look on to a trip over the channel to visit the new boys.

Well, some are new. Many have plied their trade for quite some time in the game. Once more, most of the French squad will be made up from British or antipodeans.

I expect nothing less than a complete performance from our team.

No let up and absolutely no mercy against Toulouse, who will be more than happy if they take a Wigan scalp as their first in Super League.

In reality, although the French side is improving week by week, they should be no match for us, and so it kind of puts the pressure on a little.

I don’t mind that if we turn up with the right attitude. Sometimes in the past we have been guilty of expecting the win, and almost just turning up will do.

Not this squad though, we have some great quality and depth in this group who are up to the task of setting and maintaining standards.

The opposition will be tough, they play a Championship style of rugby which is a little rough around the edges and can cause some teams to lose their tempers in retaliation.

With calm heads, a stoic defence and playing like we want the win, I don’t see past a convincing victory.

With my personal work commitments over the last 30 years of running a small business, I have not managed to get to any of the away days abroad and this is no different.

So my memories of overseas games are just not there. That said, you would have been forgiven for thinking you are entering another country every time you go over Billinge hill.

It’s almost like a different language.

Of course, this won’t always be the case and as early retirement looms on the horizon, who knows what memories are waiting to be made in due course.

Stephen Ford

My only overseas trip was to Barcelona a few years ago. I couldn’t get to Sydney versus the Roosters or Brisbane to play the Broncos due to work commitments, and for no particular reason a trip to Carcassonne didn’t float my boat.

I’d been to Barcelona previously for a city break and really enjoyed it. A vibrant city, brilliant food, lots of fantastic bars plus great weather made it a brilliant place to visit. Combine that with rugby and I’ve just defined my idea of heaven.

A party of about seven of us decided to go for the craic and the fact the game against Catalans was to be played at the Camp Nou just about made this a potential once in a lifetime chance to watch Wigan in the world famous stadium.

The trip was brilliant. Lots of Guinness, packed bars and bucket loads of laughter.

I don’t know how many fans we took but there appeared to be Wiganers in every bar that we went in.

Drank through the day ending up in the Irish Bar directly across from our apartments. Short stagger home.

Perfect first day.

Match day was on Saturday. Up early despite the late night.

Spent the morning and early afternoon in one of the locals squares that was jammed with Wiganers booting rugby balls across the square with locals joining in.

A great atmosphere. The trip to the stadium was another great moment with hundreds of Wigan fans singing and chanting on the underground.

We all got to the stadium in plenty of time to take in the atmosphere generated by a healthy +30,000 crowd. What could go wrong?

Great support.

Good crowd with a pleasing number of Catalans fans would surely drive the team into giving a high tempo, intensive performance.

What happened?

The team just didn’t turn up.

One of the worst performances I have ever seen from a Wigan team in all my years of watching them.

Lacklustre, fitful, mistakes by the bucket load.

The pre match euphoric atmosphere deteriorated rapidly and as Catalans ran away with the game I was quickly wishing the game would finish sooner rather than later to stop the humiliation.

That was the game I knew that Lam would never make it as a Super League coach. If he couldn’t raise the team for such an historic game he’d never do it in a month of Sundays when we had to play Castleford away on a cold, wet, windy Friday night.

A disaster of a trip then?

No way. Great memories slightly soiled by a non performance of a team who looked and performed like they would sooner had been somewhere else.

The same bunch plus a few more are off to Toulouse and I’m really looking forward to it.

Heard nothing but good reports about the town and potentially we have a team that can give every team a game and with some outstanding individual players ably supported by a coaching team who seem to know what they want and how we can deliver it.

I am expecting a few unenforced changes to give some of the fringe players like Miski and Smith a chance, but still anticipate a strong performance irrespective of who is selected.

In a few short months a seemingly total turnaround at the club.

People actually looking forward to the game and playing in Toulouse just puts the cherry on top.

Performance wise there is no way do I see a repeat of the Barcelona trip.

Jon Lyon

Sadly not attending, but very much looking forward to Saturday’s game at Toulouse. The French side gave a good account of themselves in the second half last week against Warrington and have been improving week on week.

I’m most excited to see Abbas Miski in action, as announced earlier in the week. He had an excellent try scoring record at London Broncos last season and deserves a chance to show what he can do.

It will be a long season so Matt Peet is right to use the squad early and rotate while he can.

As we’ve found out in previous years, once injuries and suspensions take hold it can be hard to rest players at the business end of the season.

While Toulouse are fast improving I still see this game ending up a comfortable win for Wigan.

There will be the usual early forward battle but our superior fitness and skill levels should see us home as long as we are fully committed to the basics.

With Cust and Tommy leading us around the field and the aggressive running and line speed in defence from our forwards collectively, I can’t see Toulouse staying in the race in the second half.

As long as the referee isn’t swayed by a no doubt passionate home support, which often seems the case at Catalans, and we get a fair crack where penalties are concerned I can see us winning by 20 points or more.

Sadly I have yet to watch Wigan play overseas.

If I could pick any past game to have been at it would undoubtedly be the Brisbane World Club Challenge match in 1994, surely Wigan’s greatest ever triumph.

To beat a star studded Brisbane side in their own back yard off the back of a draining season, and having lost Andy Platt and Kelvin Skerrett before the game, what a performance.

The atmosphere must have been incredible, we were given no chance at all and blew Brisbane away early and then defended for our lives.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who can explain how Denis Betts grounded the ball for his try, moving at pace past the ball as he was, it defied science.

Hopefully one day I will get to the south of France to watch a Wigan match.

Having spent a few holidays there many years ago, it is a beautiful part of the country and it would be great to experience the Catalans atmosphere, and see if my GCSE French is of any use.

Is there much call for telling someone the cat is standing on the table at a Super League game?