First punch was understandable, 2nd was a disgrace!imo his actions cost us the game, not only that he let himself and the club down by standing over someone whilst they were knocked out and punch them live on tv..... well done the club!

Wind yer neck in - a degree of proportion please. Racism, exploitation & endangerment are not what we're talking about here.
If you want sporting injustice how about Schalk Burger only getting 2 months for trying to poke out another player's eyes? You could well argue that that was pre-meditated & deserved a much longer ban (if not life).

Flower's actions were broadcast in full technicolour and regardless of whether it's right or correct that the media influence levels of punishment, the fact is they do. Just stick "Ben Flower" into any search engine - apart from his Wiki biog, almost everything is about the punch (and even then it's only 5 paragraphs before it's mentioned).

I've not heard anyone (except on here) complain about the punishment. Flower's accepted it (or at least publicly he has) & I'd guess the rest of the squad has been told to stay off the topic or a slap will be heading their way.

He cost us a sealed on (well, as sealed as any game can be) trophy. Brought the club & the game into ridicule. And I'm pretty sure there will be some inventive chants from the North Stand that will get increasingly annoying as next year moves through (can someone do something to dampen the acoustics in there please).

Hard done by ? I think not.

Nice one Wigan. Further scapegoat someone already punished to appease the fact that WAnes tactics backfired and Wigan ended up trophyless this season. That should deflect the fans wrath nicely.


Meanwhile -precedent set. Every time mccllorum loses his cool and lashes out violently he can expect a hefty fine yes??????

............

I wouldn't know what ILs reasons are, although his judgement is usually pretty good. However in this case I agree with you, and I don't think there was any need to drag this out into the open again.

Ok, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think Ben has been unfairly and disproportionately punished. You make a good point about Burger, and surely that only exacerbates Ben's punishment. If I was his TU rep I'd drive a coach and horses through this.

As ever you make good points in your posts.

I always enjoy your stuff, but find it a little hard to read - any chance of paragraphs?

Whatever you think of the punishment, it's an interesting counterpoint to the news coming out of the wendyball camp...

harsher than I expected.

However it appears from comments made by Ben Flower that he is taking his punishment on the chin!

Ben Flower said:

"I fully accept this decision taken by Wigan. I deeply regret my actions and I am grateful for the support that my club has given me throughout this process.

"It is a relief to reach closure on the incident and I hope to move forward now and rebuild the trust of my club, team-mates and the Wigan fans."

I can imagine that some players would not have taken such internal action quite as well as Ben Flower. I would be interested in the opinion of the players union on this particular incident and action by Wigan and the RFL.

I'll bear that in mind!

One thing is certain when his contract is up he will leave. Well done IL for getting rid of another player.

This is harsh he is been punished twice for the same incident which is wrong. Is this how we manage to get Mossop in under the cap by not paying a player fully for 3 months. We did something similar a few years ago and got done for breaking the spirit of the cap. This feels the same for me no need for the club to punish him it was for the RFL disciplinary to sort out and not the media and IL. As it was on the field of play and not off.

I wish I could be stopped from doing my job for 6 months due to gross misconduct and still get 75% of my salary.