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.

it surely has to be connected to the coaching?

I thought that Bateman was fantastic for you last night,if he full-fills his undoubted potential he could be a superstar

Made 34 tackles 2nd highest in the game.

I was impressed with Patrick last night. He threw himself about in the tackle and put some good hits on.

It's a weird game really because I was impressed with many individuals yet as a team we lost the plot.

I'm looking forward to us making a few opposition fans look a little silly because we will. I've read all sorts of trash being thrown at us after last night but we should really take it as a complement.

Wane has said he sems him playing Prop for us and he's trained him up with this in mind.

When Charnley went off he was forced to play back row and he didnt really know any of our structures. So he wasnt really great or influential but thats understandable given the scenario.

We played reasonably well in the first half to get to 16-0 up. Widnes weren't going to be pushovers but the players proved in that opening period exactly what they are capable of. It's not the first time that a Wigan side has appeared to lose concentration at a time when they should be trying to reach a point where they are comfortable.

There were some good performances to be found in there. Sutton did very well, Bateman looked strong and Tautai caused problems and will be a really good player with a bit more match fitness. George Williams also did well given the circumstances. He showed some good touches and also an exceptional one with his offload. Late in the game he also seemed to be the only player with the right idea - trying to take the line on and be more direct.

The way the team played in the second half was just unfathomable. They just kept going from one side of the field to the other with little in the way of hard work. not the first time it's happened either. The play was nowhere near direct enough. The Widnes forwards would have been delighted. I can understand the temptation to try to make a man advantage count by looking for an overlap but even those with only the slightest knowledge of the game will realise that the best way to do that is to draw the forwards in down the middle. There was very little of that and as a result the Widnes forwards were nowhere near as tired as they should have been.

The absolute worst part of the game was conceding a try from an overlap despite a man advantage. You'd be appalled at that if you were coaching juniors. There wasn't much threat from the blind side, there was plenty of space out to the right and somehow our defence was caught a man short. I thought Stefan Marsh's tackle attempt on Joel Tomkins was as bad as it gets in terms of defence but I was proven wrong.

If we're going to win any trophies this year we're going to need a lot from our halves. We've got many choices at 6, but the one constant will almost certainly be Smith. He needs to step up this year and prove that the reputation he's building for himself is justified. Green did an awful lot of work that went unnoticed, or perhaps it was more a case of what he did was just like clockwork that it started to be taken for granted. Smith needs to be a leader and take charge and be a dominant voice. Hopefully that will happen over the course of the season. We can't afford to have too much pressure on Williams (or Powell, or Hampshire if they get their chance).

It was a very strange performance from us because as a team we lost the plot yet some individual performances were hugely positive.

I thought Gelling looked like he'll kick on, Joel looks like he's offering that threat he did pre Union(although he needs to give his head a wobble), Logan Tomkins looked sharp, Tautai will be a player for us, Bateman was exceptional, Patrick and Clubb put themselves about in defence and I thought the two youngsters in Williams and Sutton both looked like they belonged in the side.

I say all that yet as a team we weren't composed enough and got sucked in to a scrappy game littered with petulant arguments and silly penalties. I blame the old heads to be honest like Lockers, Bowen, Smith and Joel. They should have gripped hold of that game but as the situation was unfolding and Widnes were scoring I saw very little chatter behind the sticks and even less composure in their play.

I'm happy though. I think the team has masses of potential and we'll get it right next week.

Spot on NK.
Think we will have a roller coaster of a season just didn't expect it to start at Widnes!

I kinda agree, but that is putting the most positive gloss possible on it. Certainly if we want to get anything out of the game against the Giants we'll need to do a lot better.