I thought we did the right thing, with a lead in the 2nd half against the favourites, forcing repeat set after repeat set. 

Hull KR were in a bad position in the last 20 minutes of that game. Best team in the country but with no silverware yet and facing the mental gremlins of seeing another final slip away, in the pouring rain, and being trapped in a doom loop of being forced to drop out from under their sticks by Sneyd who is relentless at keeping the pressure on.


Most teams would have broken at some point either from the physical or mental pressure and if we'd gone 12-2 up that would have been game over. They are a very good team to survive that. They withstood the pressure and had one opportunity to punish us and they took it. 


Unfortunately we make scoring hard work because we don't have the strike players of old that can finish plays. Imagine that last 20 minutes if Sneyd had the guys around him that Briers did in the final years of his career...Hicks, King, Atkins, Monaghan etc. He'd have been putting kicks to the corner and we'd have swamped them. 

There's good news about this weekends game at Leeds...good news is we don't have the biased Liam 6 moore as ref bad news is we have Chris Kendall... penalty leeds

I saw that and smiled. I would rather they created something around "back on the horse, all focus on the league".

But we should be used to it. In terms of final defeats is it 8 from the last 9 finals now? Learning lessons after each one. 

Obviously, Sam had declared his playing squad & 18th man but i can't help thinking ,with the way the weather turned out, that Max Wood with his Keiron Cunninghamesque shape could have really made a difference to our attack.

Yes 8 losses from the last 9 finals. In the last 16 years since 2009 we've been to 12 finals, won 4, lost 8, but 3 of the wins were the first three between 2009 and 2012. 


To put that in context, in the 16 years before 2009 we made one final (Regal Trophy in 95) and lost. 


Our haul of 4 trophies since 2009 is the best outside the big three of Wigan, Saints and Leeds. Hull have 2; Catalans, Leigh and Hull KR have 1 each. That stat actually holds until you go back to 2000 since when Bradford have 5. 


So for sure we have been one of the more relevant and competitive teams over the past two decades.


The frustration is that trophy tally could have looked much healthier because there were a few "if onlys"...


2013 GF v Wigan we probably would have won had we not been screwed by Joel Monaghan and Ratchford getting injured 
2016 CCF v Hull felt like we were the better team, we paid the price for not putting them away when we were ahead
2018 CCF v Catalans we didn't turn up in the first half, loss of concentration in the minutes before half time let them put us away
2025 CCF v Hull KR although we were the underdogs it felt like we were the better team and same happened as in 2016


In the other 4 finals we were beaten by the better team. 2012 GF v Leeds we were at our absolute peak but Leeds were still in a historic run, that was their 5th win in 6 years. 2016 and 2018 GFs v Wigan it didn't feel like we were facing an all time great Wigan team by any means but it was a very well coached one with excellent young players. 2024 CCF v Wigan we never really looked like we'd win. 

I agree with your "if only" synopsis apart from the final v Catalans. 


We were so off the pace in the first half it was unforgiveable, yes momentum swings during matches but we had witnessed first hand what Catalans had done to St Helens in the semi final at BWFC's Stadium the game before ours....


How we laughed as we queued up for our pre match beers, our neighbours from WA9 steamrollered it should have been no surprise to anyone what the opposition game plan was going to be