"At Wigan we are known for being aggressive but we are constantly told to do this within the rules of the game and that punching isn't tough. We may aim to dominate teams, but we don't aim to hurt people."

Shaun Wane in a televised team talk:
"Knock people out. I can't give you any more of a free reign than that. Create mayhem. Be reckless. Because that's what's going to get us a win."

People can make their own mind up about how genuine that Wigan statement is.

He could be Daphne's brother, the one that can't talk properly.

do you base of all of your views on edited documentaires?

It's one game and one incident, if this happened every other week you'd have a case, as it doesn't and it's an extremely isolated incident your just clutching.

People's emotions are what they really want to do. Why do you feel the need to become abusive? I presume you are feeling rather down today and letting your emotions get the better of you. You have not even the excuse of the heat of the moment in expressing your true character.

Oh the amount of times this has been spouted since last night. You realise Waney knew the cameras where on, yeah? You know that these things are edited, yeah? Or are you that mind-numbingly stupid to believe that's how the best coach in British Rugby League gives his team talks? I think you might just be. Go celebrate your win and leave those of us with intelligence to discuss this with some actual thought.

Tbh i think he is getting annoyed.

Saints win a GF and we get the press out of it.

If i was IL i would phone Don King tell him to book a fight between Sonny Bill and Ben Two Punch Flowers for Wembley Stadium asap. Could be the curtain raiser for the 4 nations. Or phone Dana White of UFC .

No, he bases them on my posts on the VT before "copy and pasting" them under his own username.

I'm rather calm today. Okay so using your logic...someone breaks into your house and you murder them, stabbing them repeatedly in the chest. This is in the heat of the moment. This must mean you're a cold blooded killer and all you think about day and night is murdering people?

Using your logic every time someone's emotions boil over, whether in sport or in life, they should be condemned by those actions, and be told by someone with the academic qualities of a pubic hair, that they did so because this is what they really want to do.

If you believe this, you're a moron, which your last two posts on this thread have shown you to be.

Wigan fans getting a bit sensitive then and Jeff continues the abuse.

I see you didn't take any of my points and try to debate them.

Just intolerant of know-it-all amateur psychiatrists.

Or mine, just another band wagon jumper.

He just got owned by my post and had to resort to his default.

To be fair, the video of the "team talk" does not appear to be brutally edited so that you could argue that he didn't say those things or that he didn't mean to say them and if you accept that he DID say those things in the context of a motivational dressing room team talk - and thats how it appears to be - then there is at least an outstanding question of how much of a contributing factor was this to the attack to the head of a semi-conscious (at best) player laying prone on the ground ?

Give over FTV! Unless you're trying to tell us that none of your coaches has ever said something similar when trying to fire up his players? I very much doubt you'd need to go back further than your current one (sic) given his statements after the Good Friday defeat.

Yes his reply is one of i am now done thinking and must attempt to save face. But made himself look even worse.

No, no, no, he said them he just didn't mean them. . . . . apparently.

This would ordinarily be treated as one player having a meltdown. However, through having a coach who is stupid enough to go on record telling his players to act outside of the rules and knock people out, the Wigan club is standing trial alongside the player.

Wane has a lot to answer for, he lost you the game by being unable to instil discipline in his players and he has created a situation where the club can be perceived as having a culture which allows these behaviours.

If he can't instill discipline why aren't we getting 2/3 players a week sent off?

I'm not sure you can argue that a team talk given months ago is suddenly remembered by Ben Flower the moment before he punches an unconscious player.
However, if this is a regular message that the coach gives to his players, it could be argued that he has cultivated a violent and unacceptable mindset amongst the players.
As he hasn't let cameras (with audio) into the Wigan dressing room again, it's something we'll never know.
As an aside, I can't believe any coach would allow filming inside a dressing room (particularly if this is the sort of thing he is going to say).

Yes repeatedly stabbing them would be a problem in the eyes of the law. It's the repeated bit that's the problem. You can only use reasonable force to defend yourself. That is where Flower went wrong. His first punch would probably have resulted in a penalty. What he then did was hit an unconscious man on the ground. I don't know where the cold blooded bit comes in as we are discussing things happening in the heat of the moment. You then resort as usual to abuse so I will leave it there.

Or to but it in context; have you never said something like ''I'd kill him for that'' (or something similar)? Did you mean you'd actually kill him? I'm guessing not. Wane was trying to fire his team up and used emotive language. He didn't mean for his players to go out and attack someone in the manner Flower did yesterday. In fact, as I remember, there were no 'unsavoury' incidents in that particular game. How was that the case if he sent them out to do that? To be honest I'm sure you, and all the other posters currently jumping on this particular bandwagon, are already aware that this is utterly ridiculous. I would certainly hope so anyway.

This is the point in which people should put away their pitchforks, call off the Witch hunts, let the rfl do their job and put this all to bed.
He knows the consequences of his actions, he knows how he has let people and himself down.
Put this in the history books, and leave him alone, he's a young lad at the end of the day, can anyone of us say we haven't let ourselves down in our life? He's just unfortunately had his moment in front of the national media, leave him alone and let him geton with his eextended off season, carrying on could be detrimental to his mental health and no one wants people in a situation like Terry Newton, this witch hunt is the type of thing that can send people over the edge.

I agree with you (I'm not a Wigan supporter BTW

) the public viewing of the video is, shall we say, a tad unfortunate, a PR disaster of substantial scale, the sort of thing that SHOULD have the Wigan board of directors pulling their hair out and wondering how the hell they ever agreed to do this, its a classic shot to the foot and is an embarrassment of all who are involved.

Without the video I agree, you have one player who had the red mist and did something very stupid, he gets punished and the club are not connected to his stupidity in any way, with the video in the public domain prior to the game with the approval of the board you suddenly elevate the incident to a tacit agreement and no amount of humble apologies after the event can change what was publically said in that dressing room by the head coach.

Great post Yed and total respect for you as well.