Talk about polishing your halo, by a country mile the worst incident of the match was the hit on Manfredi, lucky we're not playing Union because that would have been a straight red.
PS, once again congratulations on winning, you deserved it for coming up with the big plays when it mattered.

Got no problem with the interviews the only one who comes across as all sour grapes is burgess, but he's a young kid who has just lost a close big game. I imagine most of the Wigan team had similar thoughts to him difference is most had the maturity to deal with it a little more professionally, which hopefully comes with experience

Personally, I couldn't give a monkey's chuff what the Wigan players, fans and coaching staff think or say.

I don't doubt for a second that we've all been linked to some poorly judged statement or other, so I can't really condemn someone else for it. The best way to deal with it is to ignore it and do your talking on the field. In the main, that is what the team have done. I suspect that the only reason JP and Sinfield have mentioned it is because their professional restraints are no longer applicable.

We won, they lost, let them do their own soul searching.

What did JP say?

After watching the game back on Sky Sunday morning a few things I picked up on were Wigan spent far too much time involved in the niggle, trying to wind Leeds up,

Examples of this were;
Farrell diving on McGuire approx 5 seconds after he had put the ball down to score. Farrell wasn't committed, he wasn't attempting to prevent the score, it was sheer petulance in an act to either get a reaction from Danny or worse an attempt to cause injury by adding to the momentum which was already taking Danny down the drop and into the advertising hoardings. The referee saw it but not sure if anything was said.

Tomkins coming across to celebrate when Manfredi scored but pushing McGuire on his way past before joining in the celebration. Again, petulant and completely pointless attempt to get a rise out of McGuire.

Constantly pushing the player after he has played the ball, hands in faces when getting off the tackle, the list is endless and ive no doubt this is all coached into them by the buffoon Wane.

They clearly had a game plan to target McGuire on Saturday and it massively backfired, he kept his cool greatly whilst taking dig after dig off the clueless Wigan children.

Wane has passed his sell by date, I can only imagine his team talks consist of lots of swear words, grunts and targeting of opposition players by any means necessary. Its won you F-all Shaun, time to try something new.

And Tony Clubb”foot”, that was priceless at the end, he had Matty Smith an arm’s length behind him but he caught the ball with a few minutes left and the first thing that popped into his head was “I need to kick this ball now, up and under, lets put some snow on it” hahahaha, thanks for the memory Tony. He won’t be doing that in a hurry.

He said something along the lines of "the victory was made even sweeter because it was against Wigan". When asked what he meant he replied (again not verbatim) "We like to think that we handle ourselves with a bit of class, win or lose, some teams don't have the same attitude".

I think what Wane has tried to create is the feeling that when his Wifan team walk out on the pitch it's entirely up to them wether they win or lose. Their own actions decide the result of the game. Taking the opposition out of the equation is a fairly solid technique, if you start thinking too much about what the opposition are going to do then you forget what you should be doing. It also brings self confidence, if you go out, stick to your game plan and execute then the result takes care of itself.
The issue is the way Wane goes about it. It makes it difficult to take a backward step when faced with defeat or to seem genuine about accepting you were outplayed. The "moral victory" comment about last year's GF is an example. That might be something you say in private but Wane's mentality results in him saying it out loud I front of cameras. He can't seperate fact from the story he spins to his players.
Seige mentality can be used internally within a group for short periods, I think this is another tactic Wane uses crudely and continuously. Create an injustice (eg daring to beat Wigan) and then build it and hype it. Last year that resulted in Ben Flower doing something very silly - which Wane needs to accept a huge chunk of the responsibility for.
They are an interesting club, but they have some good players and they will be a challenge next year again.

I think this present thing stems back to the magic weekend in Cardiff when Wigan won with a certain game plan and JP's statement yesterday tells me that things that were said immediately after the game and things that went on during the game were still in his mind.

I think that most of us a) recognise most of you have been reasonable and gracious in defeat and b) agree that you have a good team with bags of talent and potential for the future. Some of us will diverge over tactics and the rights and wrongs of calls on the field or by the video refs, but that's all good it's mostly friendly(ish) banter

Definitely. And it would be a boring game if every side approached it in the same way.

I think it stems back even further with the 2010 playoffs "Rugby Gods" game and the 2011 Cup final when a lot of pushing and shoving after the final whistle.

Whenever we beat Saints or Warrington, Sinfield has called the opposition a "champion team", I don't think he's ever used that term about Wigan although might've missed it.

Nah, he's said it quite a bit during the build up.

They are a niggly team, and there was a lot of unnecessary nonsense in the game. Wane creates that. Maguire introduced it. I don't like it.

Oh yes you're right there and 2010 we had such bad luck with injuries and Danny was playing his best stuff.2010 was the season that got away and did we moan that Wigan were very fortunate ? Well I'm saying it now

It's rugby league, front up or leave the pitch.