The thing is, they are just two who’ve been caught on camera. This isn’t a Tomkins problem, this is a cultural problem in both England France Canada Australia and New Zealand within the sport of rugby league.

There are rugby league players doing this every week somewhere in Sydney/Manchester/Leeds and worse. But they’ve jut not all been caught on camera.

It’s the whole culture of the sport that needs to be looked at, not the punishment of these two morons.

This is true, but until that happens it's going to fall on the clubs to deal with their own miscreants whenever they are caught.

And the best way they can do that, in my view, is to deal out some exemplary punishments.

Big fines are a good thing, I reckon. Younger players in particular won't like the idea of that, and it's the younger players we have to start with: driving the message into their heads early on that having a career as a professional sportsman is not a blank cheque to do what they want until they're 35, with partying a viable option at every turn, but that it involves serious responsibility, and that straying from the path of self-discipline can have real consequences.

I find it ridiculously hard to believe the club had not seen this footage prior to the last couple of days. I may be wrong but if 2 of your high profile players are accused of acting in this way as an employer you have a responsibility to ask for the evidence prior to “dealing with it internally”.

The punishment since this came into the public domain has been swift and appropriate.

What seems to have gone on prior to this going into the public domain is sweep it under the carpet and hope it goes away with a bit of hush money.

These are young men who get idolised by the community’s in which they spend most of their time.

The arrogance this has given then is clear to see.

Many top clubs struggle due to cultural issues within the club, we seem to have a major problem with it.

When Madge arrived he signed 1 player and seemed to revolutionise the club culture which led to on field success.

This has clearly been eroded in the Wane years.

Very poor allround despite the retrospective action hopefully a turning point and a springboard to sort it out.

That comes from the top down. Trying to burry it even if it isn’t in the public domain almost sends the message the club condone it.

Very well put. its a proven fact that alcohol affects you for days after consumption, if you have an excessive amount then the effect is longer lasting. You are not then training as you should which sort changes your team mates, the club and the people that will be paying to watch you perform as an elite athlete.

A lad I known was sent on one of those alcohol awareness courses and they said a big drinking session can still be in your system four days after the session. Usually players get one or two days off. So by the time days three and four are upon them they are training with alcohol (and whatever else they’ve taken) still in their system. That’s doing them no good at all. Even if it’s only once a month or twice a season, it’s not doing them any good and will set them back.

This is obviously aside from any abusive, arrogant or intimidating language or behaviour that’s been seen by the Tomkins lads here. It may well be that some rugby league players might be perfect athletes to the 99.9th% but still be s. But I’d bet we’d see a hell of a lot less of it if the drinking/party culture for days off is eradicated from game.

Rugby League needs to grow up and realise we are nearly in the 2020s. It’s not 1978 or even 1998 anymore. Our players shouldn’t be looking at how previous generations of rugby league players or even the lager louts of the NRL live their lives as their benchmark of how to be rugby league players. They should be seeking out the likes of Cooper Cronk go about their professionalism, or even someone like Ed Clancy.

Look. It may have happened whenever but end of the day Wigan have dealt with it transparently unlike other small time clubs.

Regards

King James

Only because it made its way into the public domain.

Absolutely. And if they had swept it up? Nothing would have happened. Happy days. Makes you wonder what else has been covered up...

That's your opinion, not a fact.

It's more likely the case that, of the two parties, the two dumb players were more likely to offer hush-money than Ian Lenagan (just weigh those two possibilities up for a moment, and think about it).

In which case, the video has indeed only come out last night - when the barmaid, or her boyfriend or whoever, finally made it public - and the club, having not originally realised how serious this incident was, responded very quickly.

If normally respectable posters like you try to turn it into a 'truth' that the club was covering something up here - when there is no hard evidence of that - then you are actively damaging Wigan RL.

Has this barmaid let on whether or not she took the money to delete the video, and if so, why the video then found its way into the public domain?

Conspiracy theories make male one wonder if they jumped before being pushed because of this?

I saw a screenshot of a text message conversation last night in which the barmaid said she couldn’t believe this got out and she was gutted. The reply said she had nothing to be gutted about as she had done nothing wrong and she responded by saying ‘they paid me a grand to delete it. The report in the WiganToday article says that the landlord made the club aware the next day and he went to meet the players with the bar staff and the players were very remorseful.

Yet she chose not to delete it. Go figure!

She could have sent it to someone the same night it happened..

As I stated earlier I have no knowledge of what the process was.

All I can say is, that as an employer if someone makes an accusation against one of my staff I want evidence of it before I can act.

The interesting part is that the landlord made the club aware of this issue anumber of weeks ago. So did the club just say fair enough and look to sort it out internally as the landlord stated they had told him they would without any evidence?

Seems unlikely.

As for the last paragraph I hope my post reaches the very core of the club.

Something isn’t right and hasn’t been for some time.

I keep referring to culture and ours is a very poor one.

In the last few years we have stood by a serial drug taker, stood by a player who glassed a team mate, stood by a player that broke a member of the publics jaw and these are only the things in the public domain.

More worryingly the team even when they are winning play without any joy, and as soon as the NRL come knocking our players can’t wait to leave in recent years unlike many other clubs who retain their players despite the interest.

In my opinion Wane going is the best thing that could happen to the club.

A new broom needed with the playing staff and an opportunity for IL and KR to press reset and start again from a senior management position.

Can't argue with this. Perhaps this all centres around Wane (pure speculation) protecting players who he's fond of. Now it's all slowly unravelling.

You may be on the money, or you may not. I think we just need to accept that, for reasons the majority of us will never know, the club has clearly decided to make wholesale changes before next season. It may be that this costs us any kind of achievement in 2018. If so, that will be a damn shame ... but someone clearly considers this a necessary risk. My view is that endless conspiracy theorising will only make this a more painful experience than it needs to be (though I also recognise that this is a fact of life in the age of the internet). Let's at least remember that difficult decisions are not taken lightly, and that those responsible are generally making them because they want to see progress.

Cost us in 2018, it's cost us for years, Wane should have gone at the end of last year, and the management at Wigan are now reaping the seeds of keeping Wane on.

Wow, I came on here expecting to see comments like "fuss over nothing", "nothing more than you see in every pub on a Friday night", "this is being blown out of proportion because its us", but striking to see the strong position taken by Wigan fans over this. You obviously have high expectations of behaviour from those that wear the jersey and it shows how highly valued the duty of being a Wigan player is to the supporters. Fair enough those two were muppets but the Wigan fans on here are a credit to the club.

I don’t think the club have made any conscious decision to change things. I think certain variables have happened that will force the club to change things.

A long overdue change at that.

Indeed she could. Are you suggesting she didn't know this though?

Don't know lad, just a suggestion on how people share media today..

She probably did delete it off her phone but she might not have the technical knowledge to delete it from the cloud if it went on YouTube or any other social media site or even know that once posted its out there in the wild so to speak, hard to get rid of and others may have copied it already.

Classic line from JT....

"You do look a scruff, really!"

The latest in Wigan today has Rads saying he saw the video on Saturday yet the landlord went to the club five weeks ago. At best this is a lackadaisical approach to investigating the incident if Rads didn't know there was a video and as a result of it surfacing [inow[/i it makes the club look bad for not acting sooner. The fact it's only issued the fines £5K Sam, 10K Joel) and suspended Joel for four week now just looks bad and a reaction to the video surfacing rather than part of a process. If as alleged the barmaid was offered a grand to delete it, whoever did that should be sacked. There should be no need for any such payoff if disciplinary action was being taken by the club. Yes the club might not like it of the video got out but the last way you would ensure that is with a backhander. Some sort of legal agreement with compensation on condition it was verifiably removed would be the only way you could do it officially but a grand payoff is the behaviour of a petty criminal.