But when most RL fans would have watched Wane's speech in New Zealand and heard his not so subtle distaste for Saints following the Wire game, you have to accept that these conclusions will be jumped to?

Priceless

What planet are you on? That last punch on someone unconcious could have been fatal.

You can come to whatever conclusion you like, but do you really think Ben Flower was thinking of Wane when he did that tonight? He saw red, that incident has nothing to do with tactics.

What does that even have to do with what I said? The punch could have been fatal so that proves it was tactics by the mastermind Wane? I feel like you've probably misunderstood what I'm saying here.

But we also have evidence that Wigan's coach has encouraged "mayhem" in a friendly. How far would he go in a game that means something?

Purely hypothetical of course, but the point has to be raised and should not be dismissed too easily in my opinion.

This is by far the best thread ive ever seen. Cheers Dave O.

I knew we would win a grand final when it didn't rain.God I am sooooooo happy.enjoy your evening.

Every punch can be fatal.

Your point?

I have to agree, offseason started early!

Let's look at the evidence. We have video evidence of wane encouraging his players to ''create mayhem'' and bash the hell out of the opposition, just for a friendly. We have a hateful narrative from wane in the build up to the game.

Then within the first minutes of the gamewe have Flower hitting Hohaia off the ball, who funnily enough just happens to be saints only playmaker.

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that the atmosphere and/or mentality wane may (may not) have created in the build up contributed to flower's red mist, or that trying to get at Hohaia early was some part of the gameplan.

On Sky Sports 2 now.ENJOY

He was already knocked out and defenceless, Flower took a second to pull his arm up to hit him with full force, it was a hell of a lot worse than Newton on Long.

No excuse full stop, ruined the game for me as a Wigan fan..nothing much more to say.

"we will do whatever it takes to win this game"

hmmmmm didn't work then did it shaun