Wigan boards hoping for him to be banned,oh and he’s a grub.

He must be a serial killer to be considered a “grub” by Wigan supporters.

Shame on you. Id rather be accused of reading the Daily Mail or The Sun.

Desperate reach that. Was barely a penalty and clearly first contact was on the arm.

I’ve just read the posts on there and to be fair, the latter posts on the topic agree with the Wigan poster who said ‘he’s done nothing wrong’.

What a player we have. Everything we could have hoped for and more. One of the best signings we’ve made in the 35 years since I’ve been following Wire.

It wasnt even a penalty. Kendall knew he’d called it wrong but he’d already blown for it based on the reaction of the Cas players.

Kendall isn’t the best. There were a number of times last night and in previous games where he’s instinctively called the wrong decision and either u-turned, or changed his decision after lineman intervention or crowd response. Also, I question his positioning at times. When Coops scores our first try, why hasn’t he positioned himself in front of the try scorer to see if the ball was placed down. He was behind Coops and at a poor angle of sight to confirm the try, hence no try sent up, for it only to be overturned. The other refs aren’t a load better, but their positioning and instinctive decisions are on another level.

The considered judgement is what makes him good imo.
Strong and wrong loses you championships....aka Russell Smith

I think Cas saw it as an opportunity to run at and rough up our main man.
On another issue Blake seemed to be struggling with an injury and didn't look totally happy at times.

I take your point and I agree- it’s good that he consults others. But if he doesn’t consult, he gets a hell of a lot wrong. Linesmen and video refs only contribute during key aspects of the game. For the most, the ref oversees the vast majority of decisions and Kendall for me makes too many bad calls. He calls too many humdingers/obvious decisions wrong. Example: second half. Charnley and whoever tackles Cas full back mat... Mat clearly drops the ball in the tackle and there’s no way it’s gone backwards. He hasn’t given a pen for ball stealing which is right but proceeds to give Cas turnover and play the ball. Then, changes his decision to the right one. One of the biggies for me is his positioning on Cooper’s try. Surely, as a ref, with a forward carrying player taking the ball over the line you position yourself in front of the forward carrying player/behind the defensive line to see if the ball’s gone down. By fortune of camera angle, our try was rightly approved on the VR. Kendall should have been in the right position and that try taken upstairs as a try.

In conclusion, Kendall is crap.

Most importantly and back on topic. Austin: not ostentatious, but pure class in every department.

What i love about Austin is that he gets Targeted, gets hit hard and roughed up but rather then just shying away he gets aggressive and just gets stuck in harder and tries to smash them. One of our best signings i've ever seen by a long shot, and if Widdop can come in and be at his best we're gonna be unreal

I noticed him rubbing his hip after a challenge on one of his early kicks but didn't notice anything after that. He does have a slight lopsided gate i sometimes think is he limping.

Austin has had a great start but three questions need answering for me before we hail him as one of our best ever signings:

1) Does he have good games against the top teams, in the knock out situations, or is he more a player that carves up weaker sides. If he's the latter it's not necessarily a bad thing, we've struggled in the past to put smaller teams to bed so those players are useful, but the big test will be how does Austin play against the top teams.

2) Related to this is the Nat Wood test (could also be the Greg Mackey test). How does he play when we are behind in a game, or when its a close game, compared to when we are piling up points. Does he pull off big moments when the team is up against it? Nat Wood was probably a less talented player than Austin but he did raise his game when it was needed.

3) Does he maintain his early season form at the end of the season and in to next season. The big question mark over him from Australia was that every time he joins a new club he has a great start and then peters out until his next move.

....he was far from petering out at his last club...he was unplayable coming off the bench.