I think a yellow for a trip is fine with me, though I understand it can be difficult for the ref in real time to determine whether it was accidental or not.
Clubb I think should be a yellow though we've seen very few of those types of yellow card for a while. Which is a shame as I think the sin bin is an underused tool.
Manfredi wasn't a sin bin for me.

I think because we're discussing whether 3 Wigan players should've been sin binned or not shows how well Widnes played and showed that Wigan's attack is blunted without their first choice full back, stand off and hooker.

Clubb was blatant and i cant see mitigation for him. It was a clear and deliberate slowing of the game because the defensive line wasnt set.
Smith's was again a deliberate action, player had done him, he stuck out a leg.

Both were pretty obvious and nailed on 10mins.

They are good examples of the why the game is so poorly officiated. Where a grey area is found for no reason. Where mitigation and subjectivity and injected in for no benefit.

deliberate trip = yellow
deliberate penalty = yellow.

the annoying thing is these decisions will be back-justified using some arcane and unused interpretation of the rules that will never be used again, then a couple of weeks later a far far less obvious 'deliberate penalty' and a trip barely worthy of the name will get a yellow card and that will be justified by saying the ref had to do so, he was left with no choice.

Manfredi one was fine

all in all i thought it was a good game, probably the first I've seen this season, both played very well. I was impressed with how Widnes stood up, often sides, especially some of the smaller clubs, can get ground down in games like that. Usually the quality of the games gets to them, they drop too many balls, make some silly decisions etc. Id liken it to boxing where often when a smaller club wins because they were in the a punchers chance, two raggedy sides going big and the smaller club landing a knockout, this seemed a little different. Widnes out-boxed Wigan. It was a smart, thinking performance, they went out with a plan and executed it to a very high quality against a very good side who played well. Could very well be a seismic performance from Widnes.

Couldn't agree more - we do seem to have a system that does its very best to make our relatively simple game as complicated as possible; both Clubb and Smith were all ends up, straight yellows - if he'd given them, nobody could complain, the rules would have been followed and no reverse engineered excuses would be required. Baffling.

Thought Widnes played some top draw rugby last night without playing in top gear. Thought the Wigan robot, did what the Wigan robot does. Would hate to be a Wigan fan, bet they can't wait till tomcats back. He can at least add an x factor. Problem is, most teams can now +1

I couldn't have complained at yellows for Clubb, Manfredi, and Smith. Gelling was OK, I reckon he was effectively pulling out; there wasn't a lot of contact and certainly no malice. All that said, I thought the game was played in a decent spirit, with no serious foul play by either side. It was an enjoyable contest in the first half, but whilst Widnes continued to play well in the second half, Wigan's cluelessness in attack made for a hard watch.

I think you are being very kind to Manfredi saying he can quickly assess something.

True to form, Ben Thaler sends LMS to the bin for the exact same offence that Clubb committed; Smokey has the gift of foresight.

.......... And an average Wigan team?

Yes our performance on the night was average. What's your point?

How on earth have Salford let Hull KR score 44 points against them? Embarrassing.

The only embarrassing thing on here is your last three posts.

Embarrassed that we let our 100% record slip to Salfraud.