Both Bateman and Ward were very good tonight (Ward more in defence, Bateman all-round). Certainly showed that Bateman should be in with a shout for international selection, if McNamara's bothering watching Super League. It also showed that Matty Smith shouldn't.

Smith should be nowhere near the Wigan team never mind England. I can't believe how far backwards he's gone in a year.

Ward, Bateman and Whitehead should be the only options for second row.

Still not convinced either of them are big enough at this stage.

Ward has taken the honary title of penalty machine tonight. Lots of daft penalties. Let's hope he can keep his nose clean in the coming games

Looked to me like Bateman was a little over enthusiastic when trying to release his leg and was kicking Ward

Bateman does impress me the more I see of him.....perhaps a little on the small side but by god he's got the right temperament and combative never-give-in nature. Similarly Farrel has always given me doubts because of size, but again tonight he was superb. Stevie Ward IMO was behind both of those two tonight.....

One thing for sure...can't understand how Tomkins can ever be mentioned as a contender. What exactly did he do or ever do?

Tomkins was useless. O'Loughlin looks shot too, but maybe he's not fit. Bateman and Williams were easily Wigan's best.

He's a bungalow. Nothing upstairs.

I was thinking more about the penalties given away at the ruck. Always seemed on the edge even if he got away with it

Ahh your probably right. I do wish the refs would clamp down on this crawling forward off the mark though. It's not what I'd call winning the ruck, it's cheating.

In what way? I am been honest but not quite sure what you were watching in the game to say that? Is it the influence of try's?

Wardy put in a massive shift for us. I wouldn't be surprised to see his stats on tackling probably something close to Bateman and Farrell put together. He still ran the ball in when required, and as for penalties, there were only a couple and one of those another Silverwood dumb one.

Other than his try Bateman did a very lot of nothing, and still managed to lose his head to concede a penalty whilst his team in possession.

I would suggest too much TV Influence in view of Bateman, rather than what took place.

Ward made 41 tackles with 4 misses, and 64 metree. Bateman only made 15 tackles, but 106 metres. Farrell made 35 tackles and 80 metres.
Ward and Bateman are both fantastic players, and are both already showing leadership qualies that defy their age.

But how many carries did Bateman make, because like I said he seemed to do a very lot of very little.

So Ward on his own did come close to both his opposites put together in defence. Not sure Farrell will have made 35 tackles though, but credit to him if so, I did think he looked much better than Bateman. Where are the stats by the way?

Bateman is currently the flavour of the month with Eddie & Stevo, who love an "all action" player. Never mind that a lot of that action isn't particularly effective and some of it is just plain dumb - he and Joel Tomkins are rapidly heading along the road of filling Gareth Hock's shoes in the "so easy to wind up it's comical" category - they like that sort of player. See also Elliot Whitehead at Catalans, who gets praised to the heavens even when he's having a quiet game.

If Bateman doesn't find a growth spurt from somewhere, he's going to fall into the gap of not being physically imposing enough to be an outstanding back rower, and not having the speed/ball skills to make an outstanding centre.

I was - for once - a bit disappointed that Sky didn't go back and get a better angle on the incident with Ward in the second half, as I thought Bateman kicked out at him. Wonder if the MRP will get a better look at it when they sit through the DVD of the game?

Bateman made 17 carries, Farrell, 15, and Ward made 13.

The stats for all the SL games are on the SL website. Garbutt's, Peacock's, and Cuthbertson's stats are very good. Watkins and Moon did a lot of tackling. The stats from the Wigan forwards Bateman, and Farrell apart, are shocking.