[urlhttp://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/10/05/31/RUGBYL_Hetherington.html[/url

Now Hetherington is accusing certain coaches of spoiling the game as a spectacle.

Maybe it's just me but I get the feeling that rival administrators are coming out with these statements because they see how hard it is to defeat us, and therefore by bringing are style of play into focus they hope that refs will penalize us at every opportunity.

The greater the fuss that's kicked up about are tactics the more were going to suffer from the referees whistle. At the start of the year we were controlling the ruck at are own pace and not getting penalized for it, but as the seasons progressed more and more influential people have criticized are style of play and were now suffering the consequences of higher penalty counts against us.

Lenegan needs to go on the offensive and fight back.

If every team played defense like us, then it would take more set moves, individual skill or catches from kicks to score points rather than gaining a quick ptb and scooting from dummy half.

Its just getting boring now, were just doing this better then every team and they dont like it. Our style of play stops the constant scoots from dummy half, which imo is a good thing, as that is dull and boring. To get past this kind of defence you need to pass the ball around and be creative. Yet more bitterness....

I noticed Sinfield saying something about it being a slower game than a normal Super League or Challenge Cup game afterwards. Burrow also said something too on the Super League show a couple of weeks ago about Wigan slowing the play down. It is something that other teams are doing to try and influence the referees and going on the last few weeks it is working.

Personally i enjoy the tight/close games, i enjoyed both games this weekend (No not because Wigan lost i would have enjoyed result reversed). People that can't appreciate a great defence should maybe consider watching Basketball.

Like Bradford were doing yesterday for about 30 mins, 5 scoots and a kick

Chris Rock did a sketch about the downside of things going well for you is that people get to bad mouth you, but if it went the other way it would be mean. Fat girls can bad mouth skinny girls, short men can can bad mouth tall men, and coaches like Terry Matterson and John Kear can bad mouth Mike Maguire. Mike Maguire doesn't need to talk back, he gets to keep his mouth shut and coach the best team in the league. He won't remember what they said when he picks up his coach of the year trophy.

Just shows the strides we have made this year ,and all the bitterness still aimed at us as a club what will it be like if we do win some silverwear.

Exactly, it gets so boring. At least Wire tried to play some exciting rugby, although I do think they need to calm down at times and not try to offload in their own half when their in the lead.

IMO that's exactly what's going on. A point lost on all the trolls who came on here over the weekend was that Wigan fans were incensed by Kear's BBC commentary because he did more than anyone to get this bandwagon rolling. Now it's in full swing and with cynical opportunists like Hetherington throwing his weight behind it - we'll see more of the same from the officials.

You do have to despair (as a fan) when the people who run our game bend with the wind. And despite what the trolls say, it's hard to shake the impression all the fuss is being created because we're Wigan. Personally I don't think Cummings needs much of an excuse.

God knows how Ian Lenagan is supposed to fight back - it's not just the other coaches, the referees, now the other chairmen are joining in.

Did they hammer away at the QPTB when saints were the best at doing that? Even though other teams were also trying to use it.

We play exciting rugby but it leaves you feeling drained, funnily enough TS didn't complain about Wigan even though you beat us. At the end of the day you play what's in front of you and come up with a game plan to do it.

and thats exactly what alot of people need to understand. Yea I can imagine it does drain you, even I was going crazy at them watching the constant unnecessary offloads.

Whatever you may say in defence of your style of play this season, the match on Sunday was a whole lot better to watch than the match on Saturday because the match on Sunday actually had life to it whereas the match on Sunday was as slow as any yawnion game I've seen. Some of that was down to the conditions, of course, but some of it was because the defensive nature of the play made it a bit of a snoozefest.

Leeds gave away just as many as us so the argument doesnt hold up at all

I'd put nearly all of it down to the conditions to be honest, we've create chances against whoever we've played this year and we just struggled to get the backs involved.

Remember the Celtic v Saints game in similar conditions last year, one try in the whole match if i recall ?

Yes, I put it down to conditions, they were awful, the ball must have been like a bar of soap, pity we didn't have Sunday's weather, but so be it.
I do think the refs are caning us and are influenced by all the media hype from every man and his dog.
Hopefully we will get decent weather for the next few weeks and get back to the good attacking rugby we were playing, Amos back to his best after a couple of run outs, is he ok, was limping a bit at one point.

That's true. But there were no penalties kicked either.

And, to be fair, we had no attack last season. It went on vacation at Easter and didn't return until the second match of this season.

Not really, the same was said regarding Huddersfield slowing the play the ball down last season, for me I enjoy the defensive part of the game, i was always told to count to 5 then move off the tackle, it's the messing around at the play the ball from Wigan/Huddersfield etc that goes un-penalised that annoys me, although its not just these two teams who do it, we were guilty of it a few times yesterday

Yeah great idea, lets base are opinions that the game of Rugby League is becoming boring on one game.



I am genuinely concerned that are effective tactics will slowly and wrongfully be eroded away by the powers that be, just because a few prominent figures within the game voice there opinions that are style of rugby is spoiling the game. Those prominent figures are only airing there views not for the good of the game, but to ensure that there own clubs tactics continue to go under the radar while at the same time proving to be very successful for them and them only.

It's about time that someone at the club stands up and defends are corner. Otherwise the naysayers will continue to have there way influencing the games officials until we at Wigan are so heavily penalized we'll be forced to change are game, ultimately allowing Hetherington and all his sheep to win.

And it's the hilarious revisionism of prats like you that annoys me.

You do know that 'our' and 'are' happen to be two different words?

I do agree though.

What about the "other" club?

I do, but I've always had problems with which is which.

And don't even get me started on which there or their to use.

I'm just thankful that I'm not required to have good spelling at work, or they'd have got rid of me a long time ago.