After watching your game on Friday and having watched us get hammered at Wigan a few weeks ago got to say wigan tactics at the ptb are a disgrace,that is not what rugby league is about tbh thought thaler was shocking against you guys and kept you firmly on the back foot in the 1st half and to keep penalising you for hand on the ball when wigan was at it every tackle was very poor

I wont be watching many games involving wigan with those tatics as it just infuriates me

Good luck rest of season

They push the lying on to the very limit everytime. Sometimes they are very good at it, but other times they become an absolute joke. It was a very infuriating game at times.

Great post, just another indication that the jealousy amongst other teams fans as Wigan are back and are title challengers.

Teams have been doing it for years, just that other teams have been better at slowing the PTB at it than others, what do you want to see? The days of the scooter hooker are long gone, thankfully.

personally, i think their tactics are spot on. they play to the limit, but thats a sign of a professional team, a better question might be why we aren't doing it?

They play to the rules, get over it.

We tried it last season and kept getting dinged for penalties. I really don't think the current Saints team are capable of playing that way; it's just 'not us'. Wigan do it so well because they are allowed to do it. They wouldn't have gotten away with it as they did yesterday if Ganson had been reffing because he dinged them good style for it against Leeds at the outset of the match.

Sadly, slowing the PTB like that spoils the flow of a game but there seems to be no heart from the majority of refs to do anything about it. Either way, it wasn't what Wigan were doing which was the problem yesterday. It was what we were doing. Had we got our heads screwed on right for the match we would have won it. Alas. We left our heads in bed.

Is Wigans slowing gown of the play the ball by getting men on the tackle and peeling off one at a time any worse than Saints hand in at play the ball?
Something that happened a lot yesterday

I think the clue to the sour grapes is in the 'getting hammered' comment

Amazing how suddenly everybody wants quick ptb's, except of course when their team's defending.

Load of rubbish! You obviously didnt bother watching Boots N All this week when Paul Cullen had a stopwatch on the Wigan Leeds game..... Wigan took around 7 seconds to complete the tackle, Leeds took around 9 seconds.

Ganson was in charge of that match.

And he penalised Fielden for taking FIVE seconds !!

I don't think that's what is being said. What is being said is that the time allowed in the tackle is too long. I think on Boots n All it was timed at 11 seconds for Wigan. That's a lot of wasted time and a lot of boredom for fans. But it isn't up to Wigan to move quickly; it's up to the ref to get them off quickly. In the NRL they have wrestling in the tackle but they get off quickly. They don't scoot; they just don't mess about. It's the messing about that is the problem. But it's a problem which lies with the ref.

I think there's only Ganson who really gets to grips with it.

The jealousy is starting to raise its head again about Wigan. Think you need to look closer to home about why you got hammered rather than moaning about Wigan

It's all well and good wanting a quick play the ball, no problem. But then you need to make sure that the ball is played with the foot, a skill that seems to have been overlooked and is not happening at present.
Far too many players are just going through the motions and it gives too big an advantage to the attacking team

I agree. But can you envison refs being consistent enough to deal with that?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go back to scooting but nor do I want durge rugby, which is what is given to us when the ref doesn't stop the messing about. Things aren't as bad as last year this season but there is still much room for improvement. A balance has to be found between allowing good defences and providing an opportunity for creative attack. I don't think that balance has been found as yet.

The slow PTB is a way of preventing fast, attacking and entertaining rugby - which is why many feel the game has become boring over the past few seasons. We all fell in love with the sport because of its fast, attacking style of play - and I know a lot of people getting disillusioned because of this. Huddersfield did it a lot last season, and they enjoyed their most successful season since Super Leagues inception. Wigan are doing it this year, and currently top the table.

Wigan are not breaking the rules, they are just adapting their style of play to the change in rules. Sure, its very ugly to watch, makes their plays boring, irritates opposition players and fans, but its effective.

We all want the rules changing as to eliminate these tedious slow PTBs, not to eradicate Wigans successful tactics, purely to restore the entertaining rugby which we all originially fell in love with.