I agree ninearches, what I'd ultimately like to see, as a fan, is Wigan lining up against Warrington with a full strength team, at magic weekend. That's unlikely ever to happen as there's too much strain on the players.

I've also learnt never to say anything bad about SW, Wigan fans go mental!

Boss Hog agrees with me at least. And he's right, it's partly down to Wigan being the benchmark for everyone else, they're the team everyone wants to beat.

The most ridiculous thing I've ever read.

Basically, Don't be as aggressive and soften up slightly to avoid injury. Anyone who has played the game will know that by going in at half @*$d is what causes injury.

Injuries happen and more than likely will boil down to the strength, conditioning and rehabilitation of players or quite simply bad luck.

If every team played at the intensity Wigan played at then SL would be in a much better place.

First of all, Eddie Hemmings still reckons there is a Stains hoodoo over us.
Whenever there's a knock on the Wigan physio's door, it's a crisis, and that dreaded hoodoo word is used again.

Wigan don't need a physio, they need a witch doctor, to rid them of this dreadful curse.

The dark arts are at large in RL. Be afraid. Be very afraid

Most of the injuries were not as a result of over aggression, many not even in contact, and if your theory had any merit you would expect the majority of injuries amongst the forwards, whereas in fact the opposite is true.

Don't think that its as clear cut as that tho it's arguable that these accidental injuries to players may not have happened if their bodies were not put under so much strain and that as it's prop v prop they are or relatively equal size and strength so kind of nullify each other out second row and centre size and strengths vary who are hitting your centres n wingers who are hardly the biggest in SL as good as they are

I think its more than that Just like a f1 car or race car the more finely tuned it it the more prone they are to break down and it's the same with some players. One thing is for certain tho injuries are more widespread and frequent as the players become bigger faster and stronger which itself is to be expected but clubs inabilities to have adequate cover means that the quality in general drops we could probably get close to two starting teams sat in the stands injured most weekends !!

Maybe the players, during their rehab, look down at their winning medals and think it was all worth it.

For sure as I say injuries are to be expected as it's a contact sport but every clubs inabilitys to staff accordingly due to the cap is now hilighting the lack of depth in squads.

Im not a fan of some of the new trends of the third or fourth man in when the attacker is virtually tackled smashing into them happening too often and it's only real perpous is to cause harm which is unsporting imo the deliberate twisting and isolating joints again no reason to do it other than to cause injurie

Completely agree. Ratchford was very upset in the Widnes game when he thought his leg and knee were being twisted in the tackle. Don't often see him riled like that.

Injuries seem to be increasing in both codes. I think this is partly to do with the changes to tackling techniques. Defence is much more aggressive than it was back in the day. I was coached to let my body fall with the player I tackled, now the idea is to send them back from where they started, and to slow down the attack by tackling the upper body initially, and then legs.

Doing away with the magic sponge hasn't helped. That used to cure two broken legs!