Oh would we all could be as clean as Wire!

I think pointing the finger at others does nothing to address our own problems does it? First you have to acknowledge it. Of course other teams play dirty from time to time, but like it or not Wigan have got a reputation as thugs.

I couldn't believe my eyes at the end. I mean kicking players is rugby's greatest crime. And you might not think it was much, but WHY DO IT? Then the melee caused by Joel. Totally unnecessary.

Wigan have a problem. I'm Shaun Wane's greatest supporter and i'm not going to start slagging him off now, but he's got to sort this out. Farrell needs to be taken in hand.

The bottom line is - We couldn't defend against 12 players who managed to put 22 points on us after being repeatedly given field position by stupid penalties. And it's no good moaning at referees either cause Child gave us a lot more than we deserved last night.

It's time to take a long hard look at things, because last night was shockingly bad. Performance wise and discipline wise.

Too kind with them md!
The another season of no silverware following a defeat in the wcs will eventually see patience running out for Leneghan, perhaps he will then see that Harris's input and advisory position was of a far greater importance to the team than he initial thought.

Shaun Mane is out of his depth and his thuggery tactic hasn't gone unnoticed.

Watching last night and live at Leigh I cant believe Williams is keeping Hampshire out of the 6 shirt - he is simply too slow. Burgess seems distracted and Manfredi should start. You are badly missing a big prop until Flower is back, as I cant see Mossop doing many minutes
What is Farrell playing at? He was borderline at Leigh and again last night - under orders?

Too right pal.
Like I just said it hasn't gone unnoticed. I know that a presenter of a rugby league programme is very aware of it.

We have Tautai and Clubb, both of whom are bigger than Flower/Mossop and Crosby isn't small either.

This isn't an excuse and it certainly isn't proof that we will automatically get better, but people saying Wane is out of his depth or we are going to struggle this season is a bit premature. Out of the last 14 seasons, we have only won 4 opening day games. That is something that needs addressing, but it hasn't hindered us too much in previous years.

But absolutely our discipline needs looking at we give away far too many stupid penalites at key times.
But being more biased for a moment, in what way last night were we more thuggish or dirty than Widnes (other than the silly Smith incident). I mean their winger got sent off for an attack to the head (accidental or not), and the scuffles during the course of the game were caused from both sides, not just us. I think on the one hand, we do have poor discipline, but on the other, people look out for it more now that we have this reputation. People purposely look for things that our players do so they can justify their pre-judgement of our players. /bias

Game should have been wrapped up by half time, bombed chances, stupid penalties 2nd half, every team is going to niggle us just got to play rugby,
Burgess has now put himself under the microscope he needs a big game next week if selected, will be interesting to see how we go at home against Hudds,
Fair play to Widnes 15mins to go thought they would win it, also fair play to their fans really got behind them when they got on a roll, we need to do that at the DW but only seems any atmosphere at the 20,000 games but that's another topic .
As previously mentioned MB's defence needs to improve no excuse this season had a year and full pre season was expecting a big season from him, we will see.

It was awful!
The second half was a shambles. The Wigan thuggery is a bit rich again after last night when it was an opposition winger who smashed a head shot into Charnley. So much so he couldn't return.
Our problem is just plain indiscipline. The niggles, lying on now is ridiculous. What's happened to Liam Farrell I don't know. He could have been penalised out of the game last night, I really don't know how he got away with some of the things he was up to.
Shaun W needs to re-establish his leadership group, then make them lead.
Shaun's got to get a grip of this and soon too with Huddersfield next up at the DW. Our home League record against them is wretched, a big turnaround is needed for next week.
We have more than enough talent, it just need directing properly.

we were boring and normal under noble, poor under millward, technically clever under madge, and now thuggish under wane. it all stems from how the team is coached in my opinion.

its a sport for the hardest of the hard in fairness so the odd blip is understandable and wanes' passion and desire is second to none, but I have always been concerned with him being our coach as he lets his passions spill too much into the players, club, fans, media and the game overall. there needs to be a line that shouldn't be crossed and I don't think wane understands that as he seems to be teaching the players to play like every man they are up against is sean long.

Playing against 12 men for an hour when you're 16-0 up and you still can't win would embarrass a pub team. 1st game of the season is no excuse for a lack of brains, discipline and leadership.

Given the circumstances, that last hour was the worst Wigan performance I've seen since "that week" in 2005.

How about the 3 late shoulder charges on Widnes players after they had kicked the ball? One of which caused Brown to have to leave the field.

Each of the incidents was a combination of both a late tackle and shoulder charge, went unpunished, each could have been a red card as should have been Smith for his kicking out which was a deliberate foul action.

Anyone watching this game could be forgiven for believing that Wigan are a thuggish side aided and abetted by dreadful refereeing.

Brown had the ball and dummied as Sutton put a legitimate hard tackle on him.

It was a shocking second half performance, the try just before half time gave Widnes confidence and was a big error from Burgess whose head is on bondi!

At present we seem struggling to play for more than 40 mins at the moment. which is a worry? Concentration levels / over confident????

A major concern to me (which i know others will not like) is Matty Smith.........he just never stamps his authority on a game and last night was a perfect example when Widnes went down to 12 men. Where did he go?
Smith needs to stand up and take more responsibility because Blake Green as gone and he cant leave it to Williams which in last couple of games I have watched he is doing, which as lead to fans concerns about Williams at 6.
I think he goes missing a lot especially when we are on the back foot and in the wrestle. He hides out wide when IMO he should be in the middle sorting the forwards out even more so with no micky mac last night.

I'm a Saints fan and I can see quite clearly that there was nothing wrong whatsoever with the Sutton tackle on Brown. It was a great hit.

"Josh is badly concussed, he's not in a good way - he doesn't remember any of the game," he added.

"Unfortunately because of that we ended up reshuffling our backline"

Quote from the BBC website from Wane last night - substitute Josh for Lance and it sounds remarkably like what happened in the GF. Not always easy to play against 12 men and have to re-shape the team is it!

To be fair, Matty's kicking was good last night and he landed 3 great conversions that he would have missed last season. But I know what you mean. We got nothing in open play from either half back especially in the second half.

But I also think Matty is the least of our problems. He does what he does well. His kicking is much better than Tommy Leuluai's for example, and that helps us, providing our forwards build the platform. It isn't Matty's fault that Wigan haven't gone out and bought a replacement for Blake either.

Maybe Matty lost his rag because he was played of the Park by Mellor, a Wigan reject who was let go because of his gammy leg which has been bandaged up for the last 2/3 seasons at Widnes. Even with one leg Mellor has forgot more about scrumhalf play than Smith will ever know.

I have pointed out more than once that in my opinion all Smith seems to be is a second dummy half, he works in a 20 yard corridor from the centre of the pitch out towards the right centre position, one of the responses I got to my observations about Smith was "he cant be that bad he won the Lance Todd at Wembley a couple of Years ago".

I feel sorry for Williams now he is being given a extended run in the team, a young halfback should expect a bit of guidance off his halfback partner, but he isn't going to get that guidance in the present setup from Smith. When Green was at standoff he was experienced enough to work things out for himself.

As I have said before, two halfbacks working in tandem together at Wigan is completely dead.

It is nothing like the GF. it clearly irks you that no one gives Saints much credit for making a hard job of playing against 12 men for 78 minutes. Of course playing against 12 men for 78 minutes is a lot easier than playing against 13 and of course the team a man down also have to reorganise. You are also ignoring the fact Wigan's senior players v Widnes simply failed to get a grip and organise anything. That kind of leadership should not be affected by a reshuffled back line. The half backs and loose forward were not affected and between them and the hooker should have easily been able to work out how to run Widnes off the park.

I do think there is a problem; and I said so in an earlier post. What I don’t accept is that Wigan are thugs, or that they are any guiltier of so called rough stuff than most other teams. Was what Ah Van did within the rules? We do have a problem, and it needs sorting and soon. I just don’t like pans calling kettles black.

I thought the pre-season preparation was woeful and the friendlies totally mis-used. When a player looks as rusty as Lockers did you just have to give him a run out at some point before the season kicks off. Might he pick up an injury? Well yes of course but then he might get knocked down by a bus as well. We ended up with two players out in Sarge and Micky Mac due to training ground injuries (I thik that is where both picked up their knocks, correct me if I am wrong) so I think we are safer playing than training at times! Lockers has not been prepared for the season properly.



Manfredini plays on the other wing doesn't he?

I think people are being harsh on Burgess. Despite his obvious and costly errors they really should not have mattered. If people were calling for Wane to be sacked after this one game where in my opinion he is far from blameless for the way things went, there would be uproar so I think Burgess can be cut some slack.

The reason we were poor was total lack of leadership from senior players and the half backs (as well as the shocking discipline) who should have clinically come up with plays to wipe Widnes out by exploiting the extra man but failed to do so. The key players 6,7, 9 and 13 were unaffected by Josh going off.

As to Faz, well I think the blame there lies firmly with Wane trying to knock a square peg into a round hole. He is never en enforcer in a million years.

no mention of patrick, did he play??

or did he go missing in an aggressive game

Feels like a crisis after one game after reading all this on here. Get rid of him, drop him, sack him, seems a little OTT but thats my opinion.

On last nights game, we don't help ourselves sometimes with these aggressive acts. Our last game featured the now infamous 'Ben Flower Punch', first game back and we're now embroiled in a new controversy (not to the extent of Flowers by any means) which is Matty Smiths kick and Joel Tomkins using Cameron Phelps for tackling practice.

Why? Why have we over the past season developed this over aggressive take to the great game? I'll have that its an agressive game and aggressive men are needed to play it at the highest level but some of our players take it to a whole new level - thuggery. Matty Smith has shown no indication of violent conduct throughout his career, so why now? Was it because he's so fired up to win and when Widnes scored he knew it wouldn't happen so he kicked out? Ben Flower threw his first punch after knocking the ball on when he was certain to score, its got some sort of familiarity to it.

Does SW get them so fired up to win that they will resort to thuggery when something goes wrong? For me thats the bottomline with Flower and why he did what he did, is it the bottomline to Smith and/or Joel as well?

Manfredi plays on both wings, though is more comfortable on the right.

People wouldn't call for Wane's head because he has a track record of success, and is committed (maybe too committed?) to the club. But he is clearly at fault here. I remain supportive of him. I just hope he can get a grip on this ill-discipline, because it will hurt us even more, as if the Grand Final wasn't enough.

I agree with you about Faz. I don't know what's going through his mind at the moment.

Burgess has had one good season and now he's too good for us. I think last night's performance was the rugby gods comment! I don't really care about what is fair to Joe Burgess. He has no real commitment to the club, whereas other players who do, I will cut some slack, like Micky Mac and Faz, because they have earned it. People will claim that he has a right to earn more money and play in a better comp. Well, that's fine, but then you have to live by your decisions and face the consequences.

Those two dropped balls would have both been taken 99 times out of 100 by a proper international winger like Ryan Hall, and whilst I agree about the lack of leadership, those two moments cost us the game. We would have been 22-0 up and out of sight if he'd caught the first one. So he's got to take responsibility for that. If he keeps his place for the Giants game then he's a lucky lad IMO.

Played second row in the reshuffle when Josh went off. Did absolutely nothing of note - but then you knew that!! (I certainly would have preferred Jack Hughes there- but I'm in a minority on that one)

While I think he was frustrated at dropping the ball, it was Hohaia wacking him that made him see red. An act far more thuggish than anything witnessed last night, let's not forget! It's too easy to blame Wane for this, a hell of a lot players would have thrown the first punch in Flowers situation, it was the second that was inexcusable. As far as I can remember Joel has always been keen on pinning down opposition when a bit of afters starts.