We need to manage the media hysteria

[Panchitta Marra]

We are certainly suffering from the whispering campaign re wrestling. Somehow we need to fight fire with fire and put our spin on what referees read/hear. Madge has defended it a couple of times but we need to be even more pro active.

When Huddersfield suddenly became more effective (2009)under Nathen Brown, the whispering started about wrestling in their style of defence. It calmed down after a period of time, as people realised Huddersfield were a good team.
IMO Madge should change nothing in the technique of Wigan's tackling or defence, its legal I am sure, and it is working.

[Kiwiseddon]

We are certainly suffering from the whispering campaign re wrestling. Somehow we need to fight fire with fire and put our spin on what referees read/hear. Madge has defended it a couple of times but we need to be even more pro active.

When Huddersfield suddenly became more effective (2009)under Nathen Brown, the whispering started about wrestling in their style of defence. It calmed down after a period of time, as people realised Huddersfield were a good team.
IMO Madge should change nothing in the technique of Wigan's tackling or defence, its legal I am sure, and it is working.

Absobloodylutely!! It's up the other teams and coaches to change.... not us!

[cpwigan]

We should not change BUT we need to manage the media etc in order to get a fair deal. I honestly think it could cost us a game AWAY from home. No matter who you are / how good you are if all you are doing is defending you will lose. On Friday we spent 10 minutes + just defending.

[Big Steve]

Agree with the OP - the game was only 3/4 minutes old when the two clowns on sky were going on about wigan slowing the play down and wrestling.

Every team employs wrestling techniques but by the souund of these two, Wigan and Melbourne are the onlt two who do it - it's just laziness (with the link to melbourne) and people jumping on a bandwagon.

The problem for wigan is that Ganson clearly decided to penalise Wigan for it and didn't seem to consider Leeds.

IMO, Leeds slowed the ptb down (when the player was on the floor) far more than wigan. Wigan's technique is to get players into the tackle when they are still standing and control how the defender lands on the floor - effectively slowing the ptb before it has even started.
It isn't about wrestling and laying on on the floor, we are controlling it before it gets to that stage -but this seems to now be a popular misconception about what wigan are doing around the ptb.

Few people (apart from robbie paul on teh SL Show) seem to be talking about how well wigan are moving the ball and backing play up - they are talking about the negatives and the club need to start getting some positive pr out before all refs (esp away from home have been brainwashed).

[DaveO]

Not even sure how we do it BUT somehow we need to reverse the campaign and it is becoming just that. Melbourne suffered exactly the same. It struck me Ganson went into last night match with a pre meditated plan to respond to what he is reading / hearing in the media and show Wigan who the boss is.

I said something similar when I was at the match and he started the game the way he did. It seemed pre-meditated to me and a direct response to the comments in the media. I also said if there was a ref who was going to make anything out of this then it was him.

The mentality of Ganson is tht he need to show people he is the boss etc and at the same time because it is popular at the moment gaining kudos in RL as a whole.

Unfortunately I think you may be right and I think back to the "not in the spirit of the cap" ruling that went against us with the salary cap. There was nothing in the rules to prevent what we did then and NRL sides routinely deferred wages.

Well there is nothing in the rules against the tackling technique and NRL sides employ it routinely as well.

In the former I remain convinced we got done due to the RFL bowing to the media frenzy and I can see the same happening again.

At away games it is going to become a real problem. Every tackle Cas fans were screaming last weekwend. Tonight we hardly had the ball for the first 10 minutes. We cannot play without the ball.

Well it was Cas who screamed the loudest over the Salary Cap thing as well.

If at he end of the day the tackling technique is penalised out of the game it will be our loss internationally because the Aussies won't stand for that when we play them.

I do find it strange opposition coaches simply don't just train their sides to do the same thing rather than bleat about it. Maquire managed it in a short off season so it can't be that hard!

Dave

[cpwigan]

I guess the key is the players being fit enough and one wonders if many RL teams are. We certainly were not until this season. Being so fit we can get 3 players into tackles rather than the 2 that most teams are managing. I presume Madge is at the cutting edge of wrestling techniques but other team have been doing the same and more for years. Saints at their best employed the Wigan wrestling guru? Wood? So it is certainly not new.

A simple example and this goes back to 2001. When Millward coached Saints and they beat Brisbane in a World Club Challenge, Saints employed a technique known as 'dancing' whereby rather than bash a ball carrier into the ground ASAP to complete a tackle they would literally keep him upright and moving slowly to add extra seconds. You can see at time Wigan now sometimes don't deliberately complete the tackle fully in order to add a few seconds. However, the main benefits from Madge coming in IMO have been finishing in a great position when making the tackle and wrapping the ball up. Neither are against any rules.

Initially I thought it was Ganson showboating and to some degree it is. He is incredibly sensitive to the media and very soncious of his image. However, after seeing a second game I do wonder if Cummings has instructed referees to speed up play. Not that he seems to have said anything to the rest of the RL world.

At the end of the day. RL is like very few sports in that referees control the pace of the game far more than in other sports. Hence, match officials are a bigger factor in the outcome of games.

Media hysteria is certainly not helping our prospects at the moment. Games recently have been far more up and down and inconsistent in terms of how we seem to be playing. We have not changed and were doing exactly the same things in the early games and literally destroying opposition teams with constant pressure. So the only change IMO is the mentality of the match officials.