Genuine question.

Why Matty Smith decided to kick a Widnes player celebrating is beyond me. And then Joel Tomkins just comes flying in and floors Cameron Phelps. Absolutely moronic.

Does this stem from Wane?

The whole Liam Farrell 'the enforcer' act needs to be dropped immediately. Liam Farrell is not an aggressive Ben Westwood type player and I don't know why Wane wants him to be like that. He will only continue to give away stupid penalties. Faz should continue to play to his strengths. A clever running forward who is like trying to tackle soap and a solid defender ala Harrison Hansen. He doesn't need to belt people. He just needs to make his tackles and stay disciplined.

Sick of seeing mini scuffles all game. Teams are going to take advantage of this. I sometimes think our team is too "pumped" for matches. I know we like to be aggressive and it is part of the game plan, but there is a way of going about it legally and then there is just being plain idiotic.

Big season for Shaun Wane this. Another year of no trophies and fans will turn on him IMO.

Think Faz is starting to annoy a lot of people. For every 2 good breaks he makes, he'll lie on 5 times and give 3 headshot penalties away.

Most of our pack (exception of Logan and maybe Clubb) need to take a step back and look at how Lockers conducts himself. One of the hardest hitting in RL and all-round good player and he never acts like a moron.

It's proof that you can be aggressive and channel it in the right way.

Matty Smith would never have done that 3 years ago, I'm sure you'll all agree.

Wigan fans finally starting to realise what the rest of us have known for years.

Quite a site to see Joel jump in to 'protect' somebody other than his little bro.

All handbags really but the trip from smith needs looking at no place for that girlyball petulance in our game.

Need to watch the game back, but what provoked Smith to kick out? Hanbury (?) in his face?

Yes.

Crazy from Smith and the team as a whole got sucked in. We needing to be boring in the second half and stay away from any niggle but the players couldn't control their emotions. We got pummelled on the penalty count in the second half and had only ourselves to blame.

Ah well, still great to be back in to it!

Trip? It was far more than just sticking a leg out.

Think people are going ott about Smith, it's a soft yellow at most

Just seen it now and it doesn't look as bad on camera as it did live at the ground. I thought he got him higher then he did but it's still ridiculous and he should get a game for it.

Summed up our night.

I don't think so mate. It should have been a red and I'd say the same regardless of who the guy played for.

The most surprising thing, and I think this is what the OP alludes to, is that someone like Matty Smith is doing that sort of thing.

Does Shaun Wane try and turn each and every one of his players into something/someone they are not in terms of having that horrible streak?

For me that isn't something you should try and engineer or coach. It's a natural thing. McIlorum has it, Burns has it, Brough has it, Westood has it, etc.

It appears that Wane is getting his team so angry and aggressive that they are doing things they wouldn't normally do and it will ultimately backfire.

I know its a bit of a crude saying but "sh*t sticks"......genuine question, maybe not so much tonight against lower opposition BUT will the Flower incident (along with the Wane team talk video) have some impact when it comes to how refs perform against you lot in the future???

Glad Widnes got a draw against you, justice for Matty Smiths idiotic behaviour.

Not just refs - opposition teams too. I'm not saying Wigan's transgressions last night were caused by Widnes winding them up, but that *will* happen this season. Go into a game against Saints with that attitude and we'll soon be light on troops again.



We can hardly complain about Childs ; as has been pointed out, the red card was pretty harsh for a clumsy but seemingly non-malicious challenge, and Widnes were generally on the raw end of the decisions. But favourable refs won't save our bacon in every game.

Lower opposition ? oh dear you big boys don't like it up you

I'm not sure it will going off last night. Widnes got a red card and whilst we were heavily penalised in the second half, much of it was deserved so we can't start throwing 'harsh treatment' about as an excuse.

It's all a bit OTT about Wigan anyway IMO. Last night was petulance a lot of the time not foul play. The moaning from the Widnes crowd about the late hits on kickers got them a penalty in the end but in truth none of them looked like foul play to me. We got suckered in to a couple of handbag sessions but in the main it was aggressive and legal rugby league.

The players need to stop getting conned by the opposition though and wound up. It's an issue that even goes down to the u19's who in the GF last year did exactly what the first team did last night (blow a convincing lead and got sucked in to handbags).

We need to learn to walk away.

Matty Smith had two or three instances like that in back play last night. There was one early on when he'd been knocked down when kicking on the last (not late) and Smith tried to trip the defender up as he retreated by reaching/ taking a swipe for his ankle.
Don't know what his problem was last night.

This

Plus we dont know what was said to him to wind him up but im guessing it was nothing. and it was never a sending off offence.....

You didn't see Lockers purposely twist Chris Bridge's ankle when in the tackle v Wire in the GF semi play off then I presume!?

Don’t forget to clean your rosy coloured specs for tonight will you!

Didn't you see what Chris Bridge did earlier that game?

Some of the team started to look like hot heads and idiots at times last night.
Players like Smith, Clubb and Joel, the 26/27 somethings should show leadership, keep things calm and give direction. Shaun W needs to re-establish his leadership group.

Early days yet and seeing another of their team mates knocked unconcious couldn't have done their calming nerves much good. Thankfully Ah Van got sent off. I do hope this is a new standard for the refs. It will be interesting to see how the Match Review Panel sees the incident.

The whole squad needs to look at the review and it will be awful viewing especially for the coaching staff. They simply have to do better than last night and by a very long way.
The only positive I can find is that we got one more League point from Widnes last night than we did last season. If we're looking for improvement, then that's one way I suppose!

Effectively though Smith was sent off for the remainder of the game and It'll get looked at by the review panel.

I don't like having a go at referees but Childs was hopeless last night.

I can go either way with the sending off, I don't THINK it was deliberate but he did hit Charnley around the head with I think a clenched fist. As I always say let the review committee decide. But the real poor decisions were Gelling tackling the Widnes player in the air no penalty given. The penalty given for pushing the Widnes player over the touchline when a) he's already in touch and b) Joel Tomkins is committed to the tackle, there was no second effort. Then O'Carroll runs 20 yards to attack a Wigan player and the referee doesn't caution him but speaks to Joe Mellor and gives Wigan the penalty. There are probably others I'll notice when I watch the game again but those three were from memory at the game.

An excellent summing up RG