6 matches for Howell I suspect. His only defence will be no injury caused. Had he broke his jaw, well......

Out of interest was LMS playing tonight.

yes - LMS was dire

Sorry Les, you are bang wrong.

Shocking 'tackle' and he fully deserved a straight red. I expect a hefty fine and ban, and he'll be lucky with that.

Point was made that Randall was closed down an awful lot and I think this is true. It did give Gale a lot more time and creativity, but as people have intimated, we never really got going.

Hopefully BM will see what's wrong and fix it, but tonight was not a great performance. Too many of the 'big' players went missing and Wigan deserved the two, by some distance.

yep fairly sure Ganson had blown for a forward pass so to double compound Howells brain fart the pen got turned as well allowing a score, which at 14-6 broke us.

Looked poor as a team before the moment of madness. Complete idiot to use the elbow. Even if he had not connected the intent was there. Had to go. No problem with the refs decision though the game as a meaningful contest ended at that point. After that damge limitation was all that was left to do.

Assume the RFL will ban him for 6-8 matches and no doubt no action taken against those that rush 20 metres to have a go.

The Howell decision was correct, a moment of madness for a hot headed player. I just wonder what happened in the previous set when Howell made a break. It is ironic that we would have the first player to be sent off in SL this season. Thought that Sharp had a good game, may be he will get more space now that Howell is out. I thought that Roberts must have been offside for the Pryce try. I agree, give the guys a few days off to forget the last 3 games and hopefully regroup for Hudds and Catalans. I am not sure we will win again until Purdo is back. We need to get behind the boys next week big time and lift them if our play-off challenge is to be maintained. Gale has stood up well in an under performing side IMO.

Gale has played well particularly in defence, surprisingly. Although I will say I dont think he opens our game up enough- He plays the inside scissor pass time and time again taking our runner back into the traffic.

Sharpy went well and I thought Melling was OK. The forwards were poor, disappointingly.

It was a flat performance. I think we've hit [ithe wall [/ilike we did about this time last year. Injuries impact on smallish squads. The only positive I can get out of the current situation is Purdo, Robinson, Dorn, Howell!! will all be "rested" and fit come the play off time.

Some difficult games to come-Hudds, Catalans, Saints- Can we get anything out of these? We've certainly done it before.

Time for the fans to raise there voices and get behind our team. Bring on Hudds.(you cant condone what Howell did last night but given a choice I wished he had saved it for Masons nose-School yard bully)

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.