He is attempting to help protect his own player as any coach would do by way of merely asking the referees to air on the side of Sam rather than the tackler. I doubt Tomkins would have had any ill feeling towards what Wane has said and will go about his usual stuff.

Of course Tomkins is a target, much like Burrow, Long et al were but thats because they are/were the better players on the team and the ones who could influence it most. Tomkins has big friends in the pack who can help him out if things get a bit messy but what happens on the field stays on the field.

There was no real reason for Wane to come out and do this except maybe grab a few headlines for Wigan as it'd been a bit quiet recently. Take a pinch of salt the lot of you!

The officials are there to referee the game and enforce the rules.
What else should be done to protect players ?
Lets face it, Tomkins himself is no "Snow White" and as I said earlier, he could help himself by not "show boating" which is only done to wind up the opposition players and fans.

Dont get me wrong, Tomkins has masses of talent and is worth the entrance fee on his own, but Wane's comments are similar to the kind of thing Ferguson comes out with in the round ball game and this also comes accross as though his team are so special that they should be treated differently.
Nobody can condone deliberate foul play when it is intended to cause harm, but it does happen and its up to the officials and then the disciplinary panel to sort these things out.

Well your prediction was correct LTS. We're already easily at eight entertaining pages.

Dobson doesn't need protecting the rules are already in place to do that Wane however was in such a rush to Bleat on little Sams behalf that he didn't consider that others may get the same kind of treatment.
Like I said you had TOTALLY missed the context.

Maybe Wane was brought up on RL in a time when the most skillful players were never touched.................oops

Slightly o/t, When Shaun Edwards played half of a cup final with a broken cheekbone, that WAS doing it tough and his comment post match was that he didn't want the opposition to think that they'd hurt him.

I still cannot believe you don't get it. That is exactly what Wane is interested in, only getting protection for Sam. When he talks about 'not just the Sa incident', he is talking about other incidents on Sam, not on other players across the league.

Wane is in a better position to judge on what is happening to Sam, then many of the other people on this forum. At the end of the day foul play is foul play, whether it is relative across the league or not.

Ref's will take note of Wane's comment and whether they realise it or not, they will now be paying even closer attention to Sam in the next few games. So if any player was to try any foul play, it would be very stupid indeed.

I think he's suggesting the ape is a hypocrite

Yes, because Shane Wane has spoken and they shall obey.

Alternatively, the celebrity ref's who don't like being told what to do will come down like a tonne of bricks on anything that Wigan's forwards do that looks like retaliation.

I can't believe you are persisting in pretending that standpoint makes any sense.

It worked when Luke o'donnell tried taking the law into his own hands after Nathan brown moaned in the same way,


Oh........

Oh no I get it.
It's just embarrassing for him,for the game and for for Wigan.
Its all rather pathetic.
Unfortunatly the Wigan fans have jumped to the usual stupid viewpoint that is all just a case of jealousy.
It isn't but as usual the Wigan fans can't see thought their cherry and white specs and that itself in the most embarrassing and pathetic thing.

We get it, alright. Its typical comments as above that differentiates between a Wigan Fan and a Wigoon, your constant minority stance or opinion on the situation suggests you may be the latter.
The RFL will never accept Wanes suggestive protective impartiality.

I think the more pertinent question is when are refs going to protect the RFL from Sam Tomkins?

These forum boards need like buttons.

Happens unfortunately when you are the most successful Rugby League team in the UK.

Well I think we have all seen the way that match officials 'sway' towards the home crowd at places like Headingley.

'Tomkins. S' is possibly the best RL player to emerge in a generation or more, but still a large number of so called RL fans are too bitter for whatever reason, to do nothing other than 'slag him off', merely because he plays for Wigan.

He gets booed at Leeds regularly, and apparently, the Saints fans booed him at last weeks non-entity of a game in St Helens. And while playing for England !

If we are ever to beat the Ozzies, it's this sort of parochialism that ensures we remain a minor sport.

Tough tackling yes - dirty tactics NO!

Legends like Alex Murphy, Billy Boston and Johnny Whiteley must be scratching their heads. Especially when Tomkins is playing for England.

As a Wigan fan I love how this has wound everyone up! I think this is just Wane's way of developing an us versus them attitude towards the latter stages of the season. He could have mentioned anyone but the fact it was Tomkins means it gets the most media coverage in the league and will provoke a reaction.

However much people dislike it, the end result is that referees will sub-consciously be looking at every collision Sam is involved in. And nobody is going to target him any more than usual because we have scored most of our tries on the back of defences being unsure of whether he is going to receive the ball or not. I wouldn't think even SL coaches are stupid enough to instruct players to fly out the line and try to put more hits on him, we'd score every set if that was the case.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Especially with Tommy out injured it takes out a threat. Some players will over read a play an will automatically look at Sam and will try and close him down before he gets the ball. This should create space for what would be a dummy runner to recieve the ball or the fastest slow man in Finch to go through the gap. Good tactics IMO.

Well as you haven't been the most successful team in RL for the best part of twenty years you probably wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about. As a Leeds fan I can tell you what happens to the most successful team, and that is that generally speaking our coaches don't go out and bitch and moan about things - they got on with winning championship after championship.

I think you mean club. Is that what you mean? Successful club? Because Wigan are a successful club, the run of success you had in the 80's and 90's doing a good job of disguising (especially to some Wigan fans) the lack of any prolonged success in the Super League era. I'm just going to assume you meant club.

And in your other posts do you mean to put a big fishing hook emoticon? I'm guessing so...

Oh the Irony!

You might want to look up irony...

Just listened to the full interview between Shaun Wane and Radio Manchester, the guy should be charged with bringing the game into disrepute if he carries out his retalitary actions.
The guy will not accept the RFL judgement and from now on his team will playing according to "Wanes World". Listeners ringing in saying he is a total embarassment.

Are you THAT arrogant that you don't think "Tomkins. S" would get booed if he played for Leeds, Saints, Warrington, etc.?

Happy anniversary, its this weekend those years ago you lost 75 - 0