As a parent of primary school kids I've lost count the number of times myself or my wife have taken the kids to the doctors to be told they have a virus. The docs never know which one without extensive unnecessary testing. It's a virus, they knock you for six and after 3 to 5 days you get over them. It wasn't flu, anyone who has had flu will confirm you can't even get out of bed never mind get yourself on a rugby pitch.

I understand that completely having children myself and visiting NHS doctors. However, I doubt Wigan will be using NHS care and will have private medical insurance which would probs cover illness. If so many had the virus would not be irresponsible of Wigan to not at least find out the name of the virus? If they had to inform the RFL I doubt they would just accept the word virus as a reason? Wouldn't they require medical evidence so they could exercise dispensation for the salary cap? If not then that's pretty serious as every club will start the play the virus card just to increase the playing roster.

I'll confirm that, had it twice, it's horrible.... First time i got it, i ate a slice and a half of toast in a week... Hope i never get it again.

Fair comment, but even with all our problems I'd rather be where we are in the table than some of those teams (like Huddersfield, at the bottom) with a better attacking record than us. Sure, both would be nice, but I prefer a scrappy win to a fluid attacking defeat.

To a point I agree but we won't keep on winning scrappy games.
We are very poor in attack and even before the injuries we looked and played like a mid table team and that is where we will end up at best unless ST comes back and drags us to another level.
I cant remember the last time when I actually don't want to go to a match. The Catalan and Huddersfield games genuinely made my jaw drop at the sheer awfulness of the quality on display.
I've haven't been able to get to the last few matches but will be there on Friday when I expect an improvement for 20 minutes or so but then anticipate Cas to win in a canter as long as they can tackle. I can take a defeat but find robots and zero skills other than wrestling a little harder to digest.
Adversity can be turned into mental toughness which is what we all expect and maybe just maybe might squeak us an odd scrappy win here and there but without significant improvement in finness and basic rugby skills we are woefully short of being anything like a top team.
Sometimes you have to reach the bottom before you can start to climb up again. Personally I don't think we have reached the bottom yet but hope that come the backend of May we might start to pick up. The way we play even with a full team containing ST I just don't see us doing anything this season.
The off field fiascos are as bad as those on the field. The lack of information on injuries, fixtures, London fixture etc makes me feel that Uncle Maurice & Uncle Dave are back in charge rather than IL who was so refreshing when he first arrived.
I have written this season off and I'm just looking for some grains of comfort in future signings and other internal changes together with the burning of the wrestling pit.

Exactly. If there was a chance of the Wakefield players catching the virus, and if it was as debilitating as reported, then the Wakefield club should / would have agreed to a postponement without question.
So, that leads me to suspect some possible smoke and mirrors here from SW & KR?

More likely that the virus has not been named because no one has identified it - do you know how hard it is to actually identify a virus, that needs a highly specialised medical facility - and even then there are a lot of viruses in circulation which have not been named anyway (especially given the high degree of mutation rates of viruses there is no off the shelf catalogue of them). Try another conspiracy theory.....

I believe it was virus Wig270089 first seen in April about 27 years ago. However it's a new strain which has an effect known as Wak620016.

I hope that clears things up.

Really strikes a chord this one. I think it's boredom that has set in with a lot of the fans. I don't get to go at the best of times, but when I do I just see the team run through the same stale plays, with the same average players making the same mistakes, playing a brand of stale rugby that sucks out any of my remaining enthusiasm. We're crying out for an attacking coach or, if need be, a new head coach. Even down under Souths are starting to look a bit stale under Maguire with other teams playing more exciting, attacking brands of rugby...

Of course i'll support the team through thick and thin (was there when we got battered by Stains and Leeds), but it doesn't mean I have to be happy with what I see on the field.

perfectly cleared up!

Wonder whether Iestyn Harris would be welcomed back?

We do need an attacking coach as we are as dishwater at the minute, all the emphasis is on smashing the their attackers and I do like our aggressive defence don't get me wrong I just want to see good rugby not good wrestling.

By all accounts Harris wasn't that highly regarded here or at Salford. Though IIRC he was assistant coach is Wane's first season as head coach (2012)? That season is probably when we played the best attacking rugby (smashing Saints at MW, 50 on Leeds at Headingley spring to mind) but the season fizzled out with two poor semi final performances after winning the LLS. We didn't have flashy HBs then but we were really well drilled and ST had a field day out the back.

Yeah but all our resident experts feel that all of that was down to MM, so you can discount that idea..