Just for your info, I don't particularly "hate" Wigan.
I am concerned for Hohaia's well-being. I said at the time he should have been forced to attend hospital for a scan after such a serious impact to the head when he was unconscious as some brain injuries are not immediately apparent and can only become serious a considerable amount of time after the impact (Natasha Richardson, Michael Scumacher and Petr Cech are the obvious examples).

Good post

To be fair however. Having played the game from the age of 11 until 25 (34 now) i can honestly say that pretty much every coach i played for, liked to give a vitriolic team talk like the one Wane gave in the documentary.

Phrases like "smash him" and "knock him out" were totally common place and you would have to be naive (not suggesting that you are naive) to think that this type rhetoric is not used by a lot of professional coaches.

Being brutal and targeting play makers is part and parcel of the game. As is whipping up your troops with macho team talks.

Again

Great post Yed

Can you do us all a favor and post it on the VT also?

Some of the comments on there regarding wishing horrible things on Flower are pretty sickening.

Maybe but theres brutal in the tackle which is great. Then there's out and out thuggery . No place in our game imo

Totally agree

Flower committed stupid act and deserves a long ban.

But there is thuggery in a lot of games as is punching players who are on the floor. I happens much more that some people are admitting on this site.....

Nice to see Alistair Campbell has a new job

Quote: Keiththered "[sizeYes repeatedly stabbing them would be a problem in the eyes of the law[/size. It's the repeated bit that's the problem. You can only use reasonable force to defend yourself. That is where Flower went wrong. His first punch would probably have resulted in a penalty. What he then did was hit an unconscious man on the ground. I don't know where the cold blooded bit comes in as we are discussing things happening in the heat of the moment. You then resort as usual to abuse so I will leave it there.'" I was hoping you'd say this. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... court.html So no, in the eyes of the law this would not be an issue. Please stop making a fool of yourself, it's embarrassing.

Quote: Keiththered "[sizeYes repeatedly stabbing them would be a problem in the eyes of the law[/size. It's the repeated bit that's the problem. You can only use reasonable force to defend yourself. That is where Flower went wrong. His first punch would probably have resulted in a penalty. What he then did was hit an unconscious man on the ground. I don't know where the cold blooded bit comes in as we are discussing things happening in the heat of the moment. You then resort as usual to abuse so I will leave it there.'" I was hoping you'd say this. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... court.html So no, in the eyes of the law this would not be an issue. Please stop making a fool of yourself, it's embarrassing.

The offence needs to be viewed the morning after, only then can some objectivity and justice prevail.
Measured response not knee-jerk response.

Maybe Dana International would be more appropriate!

Fair comment. Hope he gets the ban he deserves and we can all move on. He did a crazy thing that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

Recycling a point that many have been making for the last few seasons though, that sooner or later someone was going to get seriously hurt as a result of Wigan's ****house tactics.
Luckily last night wasn't that time but it could've been and let's be honest, players don't come out in that frame of mind, ready to rip someone's head off inside 2 minutes, without a bit of outside influence.

So either the pre match talk and last week's training sessions had him overly wound up or he's just a thug who shouldn't be playing RL.

It's good of you to admit we weren't beaten by the better team but by our coach. At least you are not deluded like most other Sts fans.

Or he's a young man who let his emotions get the better of him, made a mistake and is deeply sorry for it. But yeah, you stick to your simplistic view.

Well forgive me but I simply don't believe you. I don't necessarily mean in anger btw. Just as a turn of phrase. Are you seriously trying tell me you have never said something not literal? Really?

The rest I have no truck with until it comes to the last phrase. That's exactly the point I'm making. Wane does not give ''permission to go out and do physical harm to opponents'' in the sense you are suggesting. No more than any other coach who instructs his team to ''hit them hard'', ''smash them'', ''get in their faces'' or any of the other emotive phrases used regularly in dressing rooms the world over means for his players to go out and play outside the rules.

No seriously, I don't think I have, certainly not since I was in my late teens and worked for a succession of managers who (in the 1970s) worked by tub thumping and shouting and bawling demands rather than by simple explanation - I learned a lot of lessons over about five to six years that have lasted me for the rest of my life, one is that no-one ever made a good decision about anything when they lost their temper, two is that losing your temper is to lose control over your own brain and who wants to admit to that, and three is that in a management situation you take staff along with you, not whip them from behind - served me well when running my own business for twenty-odd years too.

Having said all of that, sport is different, sport is unlike normal life in that a massive dose of competitiveness is required (far more than is healthy in normal life) and in some sports, aggression is required, again far more than is healthy in real life - Wane demonstrated this superbly in the documentary, he would not last two minutes in industry if he tried to direct staff like that.