That was a ludicrous decision for sure.

That said, Wigan spent most of the game desperately trying to stop a game of rugby breaking out so I'm not surprised they saw the wrong side of the ref.

Suprised Lam couldn't see that in the first quarter, it seemed that Lam had Harry Smith running the plays but our Kevin N came out of the defensive line to close him down. The opposition will be happy seeing Hastings at full back he is then out of harms way.

Wigan were always going to be limited with the ball missing the likes of French, Hardaker, Field and inexplicably playing JH at full back.

It's still all about the props for me though. There shouldn't be the difference there was in the pack, particularly with Lees and Bentley missing for Saints. I read somehwere that Walmsley made 164m from 19 carries whereas Bullock, Singleton, Partington and Havard made combined 175m off 31 carries.

Until Wigan sign some props they will be a shadow of the team they could be.

I see lots of similarities between Wigan now and Saints under Cunningham. Not so much in the style of play although Wigan are very basic in attack(as are Saints, I know) but I mean more in terms of the detachment between the coach and the fans. I feel like wigan fans are walking away from games feeling dejected and then Lam goes and does his interview and makes it ten times worse.

It’s as though Lam has his head in the sand and is almost oblivious to any problems.

That’s exactly how I felt under Cunningham.

It is identical IMO and we’ve said it on here for a while. A club legend as a player who looks totally out of his depth as a coach and looks stumped as to why it’s going wrong and devoid of ideas on how to turn it. I’d say like Cunningham, Lam has suffered a bit from poor recruitment but isn’t it funny that when you have a good coach, poor recruitment seems a thing of the past. So is it poor recruitment or the fact the coach is poor and isn’t getting the required standard from the players? Holbrook dragged unbelievable improvements out of the vast majority of your squad and I think a good coach could do that here. We need a couple of players but I can only dream what a coach like Holbrook could do with some of the attacking talent we have here (when they’re all fit).

Wigan have top quality backs playing behind a weak, shallow pack. That’s it. I cannot blame Lam if Lenegan and Rads aren’t doing anything about it.
You’re all venting red mist and anger and it’s so obvious to see Lam is pist off too. He’s not getting back up from the board. Lam saying, ‘we’re not far off’ is down to the fact he is waiting for players to return and had an inclination when he expects it.
Give Lam a break and start giving the Wigan board some grief for not supporting Lammy.

To even call it a pack is being massively generous.

Ethan Havard made 14 metres from 6 carries.

With all due respect mate, we all know we're playing badly at the moment but do you honestly think was an acceptable refereeing display? He gave 2 penalties for knocking the ball out of the hooker's hands (4 points taken) saying you can't do that. You most certainly can as long as you don't stray offside as the ball is played. The ball is live once it is heeled. Explain to me how a ref not knowing the rules is acceptable.

It's a specific rule on the goal line. You can do that in general play but not on the goal line. The rule got changed a few years ago after a spate of defenders knocking the ball down in that situation and benefiting from it. The clubs voted for that change. It's inconsistent with other areas of the field but it makes sense given the nature of how easy it is for defenders to knock the hooker's arm down when defending the goal line. Too easy to spoil the play.

The laws of the game on the RFL website makes no mention of this ‘new rule’ . But there again the ‘Ball Stealing’ rule hasn’t been updated either . Absolute shambles of an organisation

The thing is, how do Wigan fix it? Both the NRL (realistic targets) and SL off contract list doesnt exactly highlight an abundance of forwards that could fix Wigans problems.

The game as whole in this country seems to be lacking good props. Go back a decade or so and it was full of them

Yeah they should publicise the rules better to be fair. There was a press release at the time but it was years ago so of course that's difficult to find now. I do wonder whether people actually want to learn though. The referee explains it on TV and the general reaction rather than "I learned something." is "The experienced professional referee clearly doesn't know the rules as well as I do, and should be sacked."

I don't actually think we need anyone that special. Nathan Massey & Chris Hill were both available and would have improved us imo.

As a club we're not going to match Saints front row, so need to stop thinking about it. We simply need to improve on what we have and that would then allow us to get more out of the stronger parts of our squad i.e Hastings, back row etc.

If we signed a new prop and coach, we'd be a different side. I'm sure of it.

No, I mean exactly what I said. You’re miles off being a top quality side. It’s probably the least able Saints side for many a year and probably your lowest quality trophy winning side in Super League. No need to be so defensive, it’s the state of the game as a whole that’s the problem. Your team in the early 2000s, along with ours and then Leeds and Bradford would demolish the current teams without breaking much of a sweat.

It may not be our most talented but it's right up there in terms of attitude/discipline and is outstanding defensively.