I love it when anyone has a dig at Wigan





Classic Wigan

It's typical of some people in the game over here. Instead of embracing good, physical, fair defence and maybe adapting it into their game, they want it outlawed and further lower the intensity of the game. Then they'll be confused as to why the England team can't compete. You'd never get the Aussie or Kiwi's to start playing a bit softer against us!

How one eyed are the Wigan fans on here? Its got nothing to do with playing hard its the techniques that you use that are potentially very dangerous. When Hull played hard against you we were branded as thugs and Willie Manu was hung drawn and quartered for daring to hurt little innocent Sam Tomkins. Or is it only Wigan that are allowed to play hard?

Exactly. They just cannot see any truth in it. When you have a stream of established league professionals and journalists (Most who haven't got any reason to be bitter towards Wigan) come out and say the same thing you would think they would at least entertain the idea. It's not about getting numbers into the tackle or being physical, its about deliberately using and coaching techniques that are likely to injure the opposition players.



Another example of Wigan's desire to win hurting the spirit of the game was Hampson running in front of Foster when he was about to make that kick on Friday. You could see he was sent on with specific instructions to do that.

tell us when you start doing that and we'll all have a look.

I think that is the bit where it is going wrong

I'm a bit intrigued by this. I'm a Wigan fan and so I probably am biased towards my team, I'll readily admit that. As fans of other teams, is the issue that Wigan are tackling too aggresively or that we are supposedly intentionally trying to hurt players? If the latter then shouldn't there be a long list of players out injured after playing against Wigan in the last year and a bit? I've seen plenty of poor/dangerous/aggressive challenges against our players in the last year, does that mean other coaches are sending out their players to injure Wigan players?

wilkin got hurt by it, and spoke up before it happened again, and you lot pilloried him.

Fair play, although I would suggest that Wilkin was over exaggerating and didn't seem to be injured. Rugby League is a tough game played by tough players, injuries happen and that is unfortunate, but I don't think I've recently seen an injury caused by a Wigan player who went out to deliberately cause an injury? Lima in the Millenium Magic games was out of order, I'd suggest that the chicken wing on Soliola (think it was Soliola?) was a very bad challenge (can't be called a tackle imo) and he was rightly banned because of it. Had there been challenges like Newton on Long then I'd be the first to agree, but I just haven't see this intent to cause injury.

You might not have done, but do you not think it's a tad suspicious that so many experienced professionals have said it? It's not like it's just one journalist, his work is basically a wrap up of what so many have said since Maguire has been here, and a lot of them haven't been made directly after a defeat to Wigan either so there is little to suggest it's just bitterness.







Mick Potter isn't one to get into mind games or politics either.

Of course it is suspicious, but surely because of the suspicion and interest it would have been proven by now, and we'd have a long list of injuries to point at and say "Look what Wigan players have done!". Just because people are saying something en masse doesn't make it a fact. I can see very little difference in the way we have defended this year (other than we haven't been as good

) and the way we defended last year. Yet last year the talk was about Wigan lying on, not Wigan trying to hurt players. The only difference I can see is that Lima (rightly) got banned for a chicken wing and then a lot of people used that to claim Wigan are trying to hurt players. I think we'll have differing opinions on the challenge on Clarkson, I think it was on a player that was still moving forward, not held and was above the knee, but in someways that's irrelevant as he was found guilty, banned and so missed another game. So that's two incidents in which a Wigan player (the same player) has put in what has been found to be a dangerous challenge and has been banned. Does that mean that Wigan go out to deliberately injure the opposition players?