Yea because boxing isnt corrupt its probably the cleanest sport on the face of the planet....

To be fair, what else could Wane say? He's said it was a deserved sending off, but of course he's got to support his player. I'd imagine that behind closed doors Wane's stringing him up!

I was at the game & I've watched the incident several times on youtube. Flower does Lance, Lance does him back (them two incidents are penalties, sin bin at the most), Flower sparks Lance clean out.

The above isn't pretty viewing, but it's a mans game and these incidents happen. But to then lean over and smack a player who's already sparked out is incredibly dangerous. His head has got nowhere to go. It can't jolt back, and the force of the punch cannot be absorbed down the body. Forget about facial fractures...the chances of suffering a brain injury are quite high in that situation. And that's unforgivable. If you think I'm going over the top then you're an idiot.

He lost you game (because other than that you were excellent), he embarrassed the sport (the games gone but that youtube link will fly around the internet), and he could have potentially put a player in a wheelchair.

It's a proper man's game, but they weren't the actions of a real man.

Interesting stats...



It's a shame that the Flower incident will mar this game and prevent us talking about what a great battle ensued between 13 v 12 and how well those remaining players dug in to produce stats like that.

Some people are too keen to blame the entire Wigan club when it was Flower who let them down and the remaining players who had to battle on then best they could. They didn't do anything wrong and in fact did their club proud.

Exactly.

Thank the lord that not every Saints fan is completely hysterical.

Flower deserves to feel like absolute poop today and nothing Wane or anyone else says, will make him feel worse. To publicly ruin Flower might be tempting, but you cant just hang someone out to dry because of a massive brain fart.

Best team lost

Record books don't remember which team played best. They only remember winners and losers.

It reminded me of when Morley got sent off for Britain against the Aussies. We almost beat them that night with 12 men but went down 22-18. Having a man sent off can either kill a side or galvanise them and it's a sign of Wigan's character that it was the latter. So take pride in defeat but facts are, we had no half backs, especially after the second minute. We were always going to have to grind the result out.

You have to take your chances - at the end of the day, that didn't happen. Fair play to Wigan for sticking in there with 12 men, the remaining players didn't let themselves down. Do you agree that Saints did well without any recognised half back?

The Superleague Champions for 2014 are the team that converted their chances - despite your disappointment, that won't change. See you next year - should be interesting.

to be honest I thought you were awful, it took all of Wigans mistakes for you to win, I will say fair doos for coming on top of the league with no halfbacks, that will probably never be matched

Fair play to you for at least giving some credit. I know it's not easy as I would be feeling the same after defeat. It wasn't a pretty match at all and spoiled as a spectacle with key players missing on both sides and the sending off incident - but we are where we are.

Looking forward to next season now

The short answer would have to be yes and you also did well to finish top of the pile in the regular season with the same problem. However, therein lies the caveat. A lot is being made of you 'having no recognised half backs' but this is hardly a new problem. You've spent most of the season in a similar position and even managed to beat us in the previous game with Wellens and Wilkin as the halves. Similarly, many over on your board don't regard Hohaia as more than a makeshift half in the first place! To say you 'did well' in struggling to beat a 12 man Wigan is subjective at best. That said, you did win, which is more than we did!

My asessment, Saints offered nothing in attack apart from the 2 tries, a close range and a kick. What won it was a combination of hard work and Wigan blowing good chances. It wasn't a good game to watch, it was two teams trying hard, Saints overcoming a lack of creative talent and Wigan tray no to overcome being a player down.

Bad final for all the wrong reasons, no matter how sky tried to big it up.

If Wigan are as great a Rugby League club as most sky staff would have us believe then I think they have missed a chance to diffuse this. I would have liked to have seen the Wigan Warriors Chairman make a statement saying what Flower did has no place in Rugby League & they would be taking internal action against him.

How exactly will that statement diffuse this.