Quote craig hkr="craig hkr"Don't play the victim. Every team has had players banned for this or similar on occasion Difference being it's actively encouraged and a drill for Wigan'"
Genuine question, do you actually believe that or was it just emotion being transferred to finger tips.
I’m a Wigan fan. I’m fully aware that in the past, particularly at the start of Maguire's tenure the team was rightly criticised for reckless challenges of this nature but that has changed and has not been the case for some time now.
I hate challenges of this nature and cringe every time I see one. They need to be stamped out and IMO Flower has got off lightly with a 2 match ban. I think the issue is not the ‘third man in’ it is how he enters the tackle and particularly the force that he enters it. In my mind it was most certainly reckless due to the force applied. A player in that circumstance can enter the tackle to wrap up the legs and put the attacker to the floor by making contact at hip level then sliding down to wrap up the legs. Flower didn’t do that. Whether is was though being rusty, miss timed, malicious or just not considering the consequences I’m sure many will make their mind up depending on where their bias lies, only one person knows the answer.
I hope the KR player is not seriously injured and is back on the field soon.
What really irks me is the accusation that the club train to do this with the intent to injure. If that was the case former players would have gone public by now and we would all know. It seems to be the fashion to accuse any indiscretion by a Wigan player to be intentional yet it’s always an accident when the rest of the league commit an offence.
I’ve not seen the Partington one so can’t comment though a grade D charge suggests it was not good.
I’ve said this before. A defensive tactic that many if not all teams apply is to slow the play the ball down by increasing the time from the initial point of contact to when the attacker is put to ground and held is called. This is why teams hold the player up, wrestle a bit and then put him to the ground. On many occasions forward momentum has stopped but the attacker is still held up for a few seconds before being put to ground. If we changed the way this is policed and the refs called held earlier ie at the point momentum has stopped. The attacker would still be standing and afforded a quick play the ball. Defensive tactics would have to change and the risk of this type of injury would be significantly reduced, just a thought…