It was late, it wasn't an elbow to the face.

Nothing like carvell trying to rip Sams head off though.

He didn't. If you watch the replay he pulled back. You're clutching at straws now.

He refused to give blatant offside against wire more than once.
He let wire get away a lot of high shots.
He let wire get away with lots of late hits on the kicker and on anybody they could which we have been sinbinned for in other games.

We were always gonna struggle in the forwards but when the ref lets a team get away with so much foul play it was beyond a joke.

The funny thing is these things we did in our "game plan" were the same ideas you lot had in the "How to beat wire" thread.

Silverwood is very poor. He's the worst ref in SL by a long way.

The forward pass at Bradford which won Wire the cup tie was so blatant it's not even a discussion point. That one decision and the unfairness of it has wrecked Bradford. They haven't won a game since and the coach has just been sacked. True they've had injuries but so has every team.

At Hudds he binned Joel & Coley for technical offences and allowed Mason twice to take Leuluai's head off after he kicked the ball and did not do anything.

Last night he allowed Wire to head hunt the kicker once the ball had gone. When the TJ came on after one incident and he hadn't blown up Silverwood snarled at the TJ for coming on for foul play. He then had no choice but to penalise Wire. He ignored the rest of the head high shots the TJ never came on again. No doubt under strict intructions from Silverwood not to.

I wrote to Stuart Cummings after the Hudds game complaining about Silverwood but we had won then. I won't now as we have lost.
"Only complain about the referee when you've won"

So many relevant comments on this and the seeming bias against Wigan by refs and VRs in the crucial games against Leeds, Saints and Warrington these past few months.

2 years ago to the day (18/07/08 - I remember it well because it was my birthday!), the Wigan V Saints game was ruined as a contest by the ref (Thaler?) sending off Micky Mac for a "high challenge" on Ade Gardner after about 5 minutes. What made it worse was that Mac had been adjudged to have knocked on at the play the ball a couple of minutes earlier when there was blatant interference. The challenge was high - but it was not as bad as some of the Warrington challenges on Friday. How times change or how your luck can be in depending on the referee!

How Morley has escaped censure/suspension this year totally bemuses me - there was a horrendous challenge in the game the week before Warrington played Wigan in February and he escaped punishment - as does Jamie Peacock time after time.

I do not class Andy Coley as a "dirty player" ( unlike Kelvin Skerrett or Terry Newton) and his rash challenge against Catalans did not merit a 2 game ban. If Coley had been playing on Friday, I think Wigan would have won - providing we had had the rub of the green ( or just correct decisions) from the ref and VR!

when was that then?

deary me...talk about clutching a straws....just accept the best team won and move on..the amount of excuses coming out of Wigan is unbelievable. Was it the ref that stopped you from getting a good lead in the first 20 mins when we kept giving you the ball?..you weren't good enough end of.

Says something about your performance when we only had 2 props out on the pitch and one of them went missing when he got hit by Harrison. You only won by 7 points and we were missing key players in key positions. Yes granted you were the better team you deserved to win, but I would be quite concerned with your performance if that was your full strength.

We are not saying you didnt deserve to win, we are just saying that in key games this season we have had some decisions go against us that could of changed the outcome of the game. Decisions that look simple to make are going against us on too many occasions and the standard of refereeing is shocking.

Wire fans may call it sour grapes, but its not as we have questioned the referee on many times this season, even when we have won.

..what does that say about your prop?

you were clear favourites on your own ground...with the better form...everybody expected you to win including me.

what does it say about our defence when we kept you down to 6 in the first 20 mins and only 16 in the full 80?...what does it say about your defence when we scored with our very first attack...and for a bit more luck Myler could have had a hatrick?

we had players missing as well...Bridge and Higham being the most notable. Carvell is not 100% yet..Paul Wood has had a few knocks...Jon Clarke didn't figure.

The plain truth is with everybody fit in both teams, it could go either way...we are that close to each other.....which to my mind is good for the game and would make a fantastic GF!...hope we see you there!

We will get you at Old Trafford!

as much as I agree with a fair bit of your post (although with hicks, Riley, King and Atkins in the backs I can't see how or why you're trying to claim your team was weakened by having Bridge out to be honest) but the prop comment is totally unfair as the hit on Fielden although totally legal was as he was virtually on the deck and not braced for impact and he was hit clean in the face with a force something similar to a heavyweight boxing champion having a free shot without any warning. Under normal circumstances he would have been given plenty of recovery time and probably not returned until the 2nd half if at all. What Stu actually did is asked to get back on as soon as possible because he knew the prop situation wasn't good and didn't want to let his team mates down and although I've not seen the stats I know he made mistakes when he came back on but I bet he was still one of our top tacklers and the situation would have been far worse for us without him.

Regarding the point you make about Wigan being clear favourites I thought the bookies and anyone suggesting this was barmy so much so that having never placed a bet before I went to the bookies and bet on a Warrington win. We don't have a good record against top teams when we play with less than 4 props in and Coley has been brilliant for us this year so I knew along with the fact that Amos Roberts wasn't looking too confident and McIlorum out that we were always going to struggle against the leagues biggest pack in what was a must win game for you in terms of the league primarily but also to shake off your unfair reputation of being chokers against the top teams.

I find it quite amusing how you suggest that we were poor for not converting our early pressure into more points when we were playing against a totally fresh fully fit defence made up of more internationals than any team in the world, yet you put it down to bad luck that Myler didn't get a hattrick in the periods of pressure you had against a completely knackered defence with players carrying injuries in it. Pat Richards failing to ground the ball and Carmont having a foot in touch are examples of bad luck are they not? Perhaps we should have scored far more early on but given the fact we didn't there's no way we should have still been in with a chance of winning so late in the game with all the possession you had but with the angle you describe it from I suggest you apply for a job at Sky.

As a Wigan fan I'm extremely proud of how our team with an average age of something daft like 23 managed, in the face of adversity, to stay within 7 points of a team who, if they showed the same level of determination as they did on Friday, would have put 50 past any other club in Super League except perhaps Saints or Leeds. Previous Wigan sides would have thrown in the towel which would have affected our points difference which given our remaining games seem a bit harder than yours this could be quite important. Saints and Leeds can never be written off in knockout games but I would really love to see a Wigan v Wire Grand Final. I'll finally shut up after this but I think Tony Smith's comments after the game were fantastic there seems to be a mutual respect between both coaches.

Well said, gpartin!Very thoughtful and, in my opinion, honest and accurate appraisal of what happened on Friday. You are clearly an intelligent and knowledgable fan - that doesn't mean to say a lot of other posters aren't intelligent and knowledgable!

Thank you very much I didn't realise how long it was though to be honest lol