That's right. What was interesting was listening to Ganson on the ref's mike afterwards. He had a real go at Tomkin's brother, I haven't seen a ref that angry in a long while - for a moment I wondered if he was going to reverse the penalty (it began 'I know he's your little brother and you feel sorry for him...'). I suspect that Tompkins senior may not have heard the last of this.

We had our worst performance of the season, Wigan had one of their best. We had 12 men for 60 minutes, 2 50-50 video ref calls against us, as well as finishing off 3 inches from the line when the hooter went.

Overall, I don't think we can be too bothered about losing 40-12. On another day, the scoreline may have even been a lot closer.

Overall, I think Wigan will be disappointed they didn't put 60-70 points on us.

yes i agree he shud have been min sin binned at least as it condones retatiation yes howel was right to be sent of ps i am a neutral watched the game on sky but tomkins bro shud have walked 2

Game lost in first 20 mins, two or three poor kicks straight to full back or winger. Howell stupid (not for the first time), Big Mac nearly as much so, starting Clubb at centre (Nobby agreed based on his interview on the Red Button show). If we're short of forwards, let's play fringe forwards like Kaye or Thompson, not very fringe wingers like Gardner.

Fine performance late on though, plenty of commitment. Good to see that Robinson looked pretty fit.

I agree Ganson made the only decision available to him with Howell however Ganson was clearly heard saying 'I know it is your little brother and you want to look after him but leave the discipline to me , we don't need follow on, on the floor tackles'. Surely this should have indicated 10 mins in the sin bin for tomkins senior and a reversed penalty. He must have seen the follow up to comment on it. Rules must be played both ways and as I said fully back the first decision on Ganson with the red card, totally disagree with him when he bottled the yellow card. Howell's bashed face at the end showed the force of the follow on and I personally do not want to see either of these actions in RL.

Howell probably lost us the taps so how did he get any water for his early bath.

I thought that is what Nobby was hinting at as well. Clubby really needs to sort out his marking technique. Maybe he's listening to all the hype too much after his England selection.
Also agree that Gardner should not be in there if he's not on the wing. Watched the reserves against Leeds and Im sure a few could have done better than him.

A small crumb of comfort is that Wigan played as well as I've seen them for some time - it wasn't all our fault (only mostly).

Amongst all the doom and gloom I would like to say congrats to Chad for 100 successive games.

Three and a half years without missing a game is brilliant.

If you look closely it wasn't Tomkins senior (dark haired) who landed both knees on Howell's head it was Tomkins junior (blonde) !! After his initial roll on the floor, he got up and once Howell had been pushed to the floor he ran in an landed on Howell's head and seems to have put in a few punches.

Dark haired Tomkins is standing all the time.

Red for Howell, Oscar for Tomkins junior!

Seems I was hood winked the same as Ganson, I thought it was Tomkins Senior due to the comments from Ganson. Help me out here, why did Ganson make the comment was he confused or did something else happen that I didn't see?

I think Tomkins dark hair ran in and pushed Howell down but it was weasel faced blonde Tomkins who managed to make enough of a recovery to drop onto Howell's head.

No excusing Howell (without reading his mind we'll never know his real intent) but Tomkins needs a little chat too - remember LMS got 5 matches for running in and a punch ..................

That is quite remarkable in today's game. Top effort Randall

I agree Gob LMS was dealt with along with 4 others.

Have to say that I have just seen the reverse angle view on Sky and I was wrong, he does lead with the elbow. (what a stupid tackle/attack)
I'm off to eat humble pie now.

Just got back. Wigan were terrible and its 2 points thrown away IMO. Even after the poor start, the game was there for the taking, and obviously Howell put paid to that.

We are missing Purdham massively. After a Wigan try, not a single person is rallying the players behind the sticks. Everyone just stands there in silence before running back up to kick off and conceed another try.

Gafa was absolutely terrible, a complete shambles in defence. Orr tries hard but Gale had another poor game in attack IMO. Our options are very limited. LMS played well apart from spilling the ball occasionally and I thought Wells played well, as well as a vast improvement from Sharp.

I can't decide whether he led with the elbow or not - the arm was definitely up but tomkins sort of twisted as he approached which meant that he was caught (possibly) with an elbow.

Either way he got up and was well enough to kneel on a grounded players head before punching it

I'd be surprised if any team in the league does more Hand/Eye work than 'Quins.

No flogging this week, a light one to compensate for the quick turn around in matches.

I'm sorry, but I think the intent was clear for all to see.

Just seen your above post! Fair play to you.

I still don't know what the hell David Howell was doing. We started appallingly, Wigan started awesomely. The frustrating thing was, just as we showed real signs of getting back into the game, he went and got sent off. He deserves the length of ban that is coming his way, no question. Despite that, I was proud of our second half showing - a 6-16 scoreline with two further "tries" disallowed is a magnificent effort for a team down to 12.

I thought Luke Gale had another good game. Hard to credit he was playing NL2 rugby a year ago. Good to see "our Willy" have a better game as well.

And after all this we're still fifth. Roll on next week

Saw that shot over here on telly. Looked liked the fella thought about a shoulder charge but then got his elbow up.

Nothing really to add about the game itself. Annoying that Howell got sent off just as we seemed to have a chance of recovering from the nightmare start. Credit to the team for not letting their heads drop in the second half, when we could have doubled our eventual points tally but for some infuriating decidions by the video ref.

Obviously it made no difference to the fact we lost, but I thought the attacking team was supposed to get benefit of the doubt and tries should only be disallowed if there is indisputable video evidence that a try is invalid?

For the Sharp try one angle suggested the outside of his boot might just have been touching a few blades of whitewashed grass; another angle suggested it was fine. (And of course a couple of weeks back we had that try given against us at home to Leeds when Scott Donald clearly had his foot on the line as he grounded the ball.)

Then for the other try (I've forgotten which of our players were involved) there is no way you could judge whether or not the ball went forward from the camera angles available. I was sat right in line with that five rows from the front and about three yards from the tryline. I had as good a view as anyone and my feeling was that the ball went fractionally forwards, but I couldn't be absolutely certain and would have had to admit benefit of the doubt had it been scored by an opponent and allowed to stand. Again, the different camera angles seemed to contradict each other; one made the pass look flat and another made it look well forward, and from this angle you could see from the pitch markings that the camera was so far behind the play for the evidence to be worthless.

It seemed to me that the bloke watching the replays was using his own experience to gauge the likelihood or otherwise of infringements having taken place and concluding that a foot probably brushed the touchline or the ball probably went forward, but surely that's not his duty? He's there to look for hard evidence, and if there is none the try should stand. Far too many tries are disallowed on freeze-frame evidence that merely clouds the issue and makes it almost impossible to decide whether a try was clean or not.

Ok I'll leave my opinions on the David Howell thing out for the timebeing as it's all highly subjective, but let's just say he'd have to be a complete moron if that was deliberate, and a retaliatory elbow to the head when the player's on the ground is even worse in my opinion.

What I really wanted to clarify was the video ref decisions. In a game where we were given something of a spanking it doesn't really matter but if the game had been decided on those decisions I'd have been kicking in the chairs of the Sports Cafe until they threw me out. The benefit of doubt rule comes in when the video footage is not conclusive. What this means for the Will Sharp 'try' is that unless you have the shot where the foot is shown on the line you give the try. What Ian Smith did was analyse countless angles which all suggested different things and then make an informed guess. This was incorrect procedure from him. He could not find an angle that gave him a reason to disallow it so he should have given it. I think the shot that made up his mind was the one looking along the touchline but because of the low angle and the slope of the pitch this had a horizon. Will Sharp's foot was beyond this horizon and therefore out of shot. So this was not a conclusive angle or anything like. For the Jon Wells one, again no angle showed the ball go forwards. The overhead would be the best one because you can see the ball in reference to the pitch markings but as the ball fell to the ground so prompty it's motion could not be determined. Therefore you give the try because there is no conclusive reason not to.

Remember THIS IS NOT UNION.

Finally on the Tompkins try, the player is in the process of losing the ball. He has definitely lost control so there's only the question of downward pressure. Now as Stevo is always saying 'only a fingertip is sufficient' but I've always believed the 'fingertip' refers to a loose ball in the try area which a player dives on to score. I think that if you're losing the ball and it just happens to hit the ground before all contact is severed with your finger then surely that's a knock on. Certainly it would be counted this way if you still had your fingertips on the ball and it hit an opponent and went loose. Then again, with all the discussion of benefit of the doubt maybe it should be awarded. But I would argue that the TV replay clearly showed a player losing possession of the ball so no benefit of the doubt should be applicable.

Anyhow these are only my musings, and there's no question we deserve to lose. I'm just fearful for when we get these decisions and the score's a lot closer.

Having watched the sky footage a few times now here’s my (probably unpopular) take on the Howell incident:

I believe the original TV angle shows the degree of intent – this is the angle where you can see Howell’s face. If you look at Howell’s face his eyes are shut and his face is screwed up and turning away prior to any contact in anticipation of a “collision”. Had there been serious intent on Howell’s part then Howell would have been looking at where he wanted his forearm to land i.e. at Tomkins.

In addition, at normal speed you can see there wasn’t a huge amount of force put into the challenge. Tomkins dives more than he is felled by the collision and looks up to the ref after hitting the floor before then burying his head in the ground as if hurt.

Obviously , the camera angle that Sky chose to repeat is the one that makes better TV … the ones taken from behind and to the side of Howell does make the challenge look a lot more serious (and idiotic).

Still the challenge was reckless and therefore the walk was deserved. However, my opinion is that the ban should be only 1-2 games rather than the 6 some folks are calling for. Let the RFL decide - I think it will depend on which camera angle they prioritise and whether or not they wish to make an example out of Howell.

On the subject of the game watching it for a second time, I thought it was a very good performance second half from the lads apart from the few defensive errors. Had we played that way with a full team I’m not convinced wigan would have won.

Unfortunately I think it was Howell’s sending off that gave us the kick up the back side to change the game plan and we would have probably continued playing like the first 20 minutes had he stayed on the pitch.

Post this on the Wigan board and watch them cry and squeal and form a virtual mob demanding your be banned



It was a murderous shot on their beloved little Tomkins. And that is that. I bet they are seething that their calls for a 10 game ban have not been heeded