Spot on Grimmy. They’re just as entitled to a drink on their day off as anybody and it would be impossible to police it in any case. They’re professional athletes and some will look after themselves better than others.
Tautai in this case had a few beers AFTER a game, not before it and I’m ok with that. The issue is that he opted to commit a criminal offence.
After Hardaker and Mullen,it’s absolutely shocking that he did this but he should be treated the same as they were and looked after. If it hasn’t been done already, it should be written into a code of conduct that every member of staff should agree to. It should be considered gross misconduct and should result in dismissal. That doesn’t have to stop the club supporting them from a welfare point of view but they should never play for the club again.

There’s a difference between having a couple of beers and going round King St until 4am after you’ve been beat and then drink driving. Let’s not confuse the two.

It’s after a game and he’s perfectly entitled to get absolutely smashed if he wants to do so. All we can hope for as fans is that players choose not to do that.

After a game is just as bad, that’s when he needs to rehydrate and get all his protein, amino acids and salts and all that which people more in the know will know, not 12 pints of Stella.

Correct. Recovery is huge but won’t negatively impact on his performance after the game. It’s he’s been out until 4am the night before a game I’d have a very different view.
I’m not sure where u got 12 pints of Stella from? 4 pints would be enough to put him twice over the limit.

He dropped 8 of them.

Not really making a point about the rights or wrongs of players drinking alcohol after a game, but doesn't weight and metabolism have a significant effect on blood alcohol levels? You'd expect rugby players (particularly the bigger ones) to be able to drink more without putting themselves over the limit. So I don't think you can really guess how many pints he downed up until 4am. Maybe knowing they can down more than the average person and not suffer the effects as much gives some rugby players a dangerous sense of complacency. Ultimately though, the only sensible thing to do is not drive after drinking alcohol. Taxis are a thing after all.

Yep, all relevant points. My point was that none of us (unless we saw him) could know how many he’d had or the state he was in. I’ve dealt with many drink drivers who apart from the smell, would appear sober but go on to blow way over the legal limit.
Tautai May have been absolutely legless, he may not but to make the decision to drive knowing he’d ‘had a few’ was 100% wrong.

When you're on call you're effectively on works time, getting paid like you say, totally different.

Maguire - I think he did during the play offs, not just any time we got beat. As I said, I'd be an advocate of that.

Fighters - I don't claim to be a fan of the sport but I'm fairly sure they temporarily stop drinking when coming up to a fight, then let their hair down afterwards. Again, I've no issue with them asking players to take it easy for short periods prior to important games, but it should be a request, not a demand, and it shouldn't be on a whim on the back of a result.

I really don't think you're bearing in mind that these are basically men doing a job. Often for a relatively poor wage in relation to what they sacrifice, put their bodies through and the abuse they take. As far as I'm concerned it's up to them if they go out or not, and if they are going to, the night after a game would be the ideal time to do so. Don't confuse this with me defending his drink driving, that's another matter, but thinking saying "We've lost, so you're not allowed out" is going to work with them is beyond naive.

Naive? I think you are being naive if you think this doesn’t happen already. I know for a fact SL teams are in the next day after a loss meaning they can’t go out on the p155, if they win they get the day off meaning they can.

When players go out after a defeat they open themselves up to trouble from fans. Maguire stopped all that and basically ensured that the players were never in a position to make a tit of themselves, and whilst yes they may have had a drink (no issues if it isn't during a drink ban) they didn't lord it wrong King St until 4am after a defeat as used to happen in the Noble era.

As happened all through the 1970s, which led to several incidents when drunken players were confronted by disgusted fans.

Maguire was a brilliant coach but I saw many players out in Wigan during the his regime win, lose or draw.

Mostly though, that was after they'd won ... because under Maguire they won most matches.

There is a difference there.

Personally, I don't agree with having a pop at sozzled players, even if, yet again, they've just disgraced the town. People are allowed some downtime (though I'd strongly query whether drinking on King Street until 4am would be good for any so-called athlete).

But it's the drip-drip-drip effect of constant bad news stories, many of which seem to centre around boozing and partying, that is starting to trouble a large section of the fans. It implies that more than a little bit of hard-partying is going on, and while there may be no direct correlation between that and the truly terrible performances we're seeing on the field (though we'd be naive to think it had no effect), it does indicate a very cavalier attitude among the team.

In a time of crisis that is the exact opposite of what we need. We want warriors, Spartans, not bloody playboys.

Tonight, when we had a 4-pointer that we had a good chance of winning, we're going into it on the back of yet another drink-related scandal and down in numbers.

If Wigan trash Leeds tonight, I'll come on here and take all this back. But I doubt anyone needs to hold their breath for that.

Funny that.