Quote: Rogues Gallery "All season the academy has run with unlimited interchanges. What other sport decides to change the rules for the last two games? How was it communicated that the interchange rule was to be changed?
There was no 4th official present at the semi-final, and it was a tremendous competitive game.
Yes it was Wigans fault and I feel sorry for those young players, for a few it would have been their last game at academy level.
Good luck in the final.'"
It has been eight substitutions all season for the academy competition. There are no fourth officials at any academy games, it relies upon the integrity of the competing clubs to stick to the rules over number of substitutions made.
Now if Wigan are saying their belief is the limit of eight was only introduced for the finals series then that suggests one of two things;
Wigan have been using twelve substitutions all season; or
Sensing the game against Warrington was slipping away from them they made the conscious decision to cheat.
I believe Warrington made the complaint straight after the game as the rule breaking was blatantly obvious to those who knew the rules which suggests the second possibility seems most likely. Wigan hadn’t used twelve subs in the previous games between the teams and I would presume it would have been spotted earlier in the season if they had been.
