who's cheating again

[cpwigan]

Sent Phil Clarke an email

Hi Phil,

In this weeks Boots 'n' All you described the RFL byelaw that teams must field their strongest team as unworkable. Could you explain why it is unworkable given Daniel Anderson freely admits that he is fielding an understrength team as opposed to 'pretending' they are injured and hiding behind medical reports. To quote Anderson;

"We have five players who genuinely can't play and a couple are due a rest," he said. "But the bottom line is we have a blue riband event on Saturday week.

"If we were in the UK it would be different, but travel does take it out of you and there is the heightened security at the moment and outside chance of delays and cancellations on flights.

"I owe it to the St Helens club and our fans that we are at our best, physically and mentally, for this game."

Anderson revealed the club had tried unsuccessfully to reverse the fixture with the Catalans, saying: "It couldn't be done because of the logistics."

The RFL needs no further burden of proof. Anderson readily admits albeit his couple is really several given only 4 players in the 20 squad for Catalan are even likely to compete for a spot in the Challenge Cup final. St helens have been so blatant that the rule is workable and the RFL need do nothing but decide upon a suitable punishment for a club publicly making a mockery of the game and its laws. You cannot sit in a studio and support punishments for salary cap breaches despite genuine mitigation on the part of both Wigan and Bradford yet then support St Helens whose only mitigating factor is physical peaking. Had this match been against any club bar Catalan the can of worms opened up could have been disasturous for the game with lawsuits and so forth. Such is the importance of SL status for all those clubs amongst the relegation dogfight.

The RL public want consistency.

All the best

[ChrisA]

adrenalinxx posted:

ChrisA posted:

adrenalinxx posted:
Saints are not cheating they can rest who ever they want, Wigan used to rest players before cup finals as well.

Wrong.

Wrong to what?

St Helens are allowed to rest players as long as they inform the RFL in their 18 and 20 man sqauds.

And Wigan do rest players before Cup Final, we rested Adrian Lam for the Warrington match before the 2002 Challenge Cup Final and I'm sure that it has been done before.

One of the laws is that you have to play your strongest team, clubs have been punished in the past for fielding weakened teams. Resting one or two players yes, resting 7 or 8 players is hardly fair to the fans who turn up expecting to not watch an academy game.

On a side note, your picture that you have as your sig is pretty pathetic.
Bad season yes, poorly run at times, yes, the death of the club, not at all, it's galvanised the fans, it's brought in a superb coach and the best front rower in the world. We are down, but we are on our way back up. That isn't what I call the death of a club.

[Dawber]

Primrose and Blue posted on another thread that Wigan used to do it all the time before big cup finals?, as far as i recolect in the early 80s when we won everything in sight there was a longer season (much longer) and also a lot more cups to play for.
I have to admit that last night on boots 'n' all Eddie gave the rounds of the kitchen to tha Stains lot (go eddie go), as i have stated the amount of cups that used to be up for grabs regal tropy/ stones bitter/ premiership final/ challenge cup need i go on you can understand teams resting a couple of players but Stains are taking the p!ss.
For some reason i don't think Eddie will be to popular in Sintelens this morning.

[Matthew]

cpwigan posted:
Sent Phil Clarke an email

Hi Phil,

In this weeks Boots 'n' All you described the RFL byelaw that teams must field their strongest team as unworkable. Could you explain why it is unworkable given Daniel Anderson freely admits that he is fielding an understrength team as opposed to 'pretending' they are injured and hiding behind medical reports. To quote Anderson;

"We have five players who genuinely can't play and a couple are due a rest," he said. "But the bottom line is we have a blue riband event on Saturday week.

"If we were in the UK it would be different, but travel does take it out of you and there is the heightened security at the moment and outside chance of delays and cancellations on flights.

"I owe it to the St Helens club and our fans that we are at our best, physically and mentally, for this game."

Anderson revealed the club had tried unsuccessfully to reverse the fixture with the Catalans, saying: "It couldn't be done because of the logistics."

The RFL needs no further burden of proof. Anderson readily admits albeit his couple is really several given only 4 players in the 20 squad for Catalan are even likely to compete for a spot in the Challenge Cup final. St helens have been so blatant that the rule is workable and the RFL need do nothing but decide upon a suitable punishment for a club publicly making a mockery of the game and its laws. You cannot sit in a studio and support punishments for salary cap breaches despite genuine mitigation on the part of both Wigan and Bradford yet then support St Helens whose only mitigating factor is physical peaking. Had this match been against any club bar Catalan the can of worms opened up could have been disasturous for the game with lawsuits and so forth. Such is the importance of SL status for all those clubs amongst the relegation dogfight.

The RL public want consistency.

All the best

Couldn't agree more. Resting a couple of players is probably excusable - half the team? Not really.

I mailed Phil about the salary cap (I'm in this week's e-mails) however he seemed happy to carry the party line; so it will be interesting to see what he says. He also edited out my question about he inconsistency with the bans for Betham and Catic - which he didn't answer.

I used to have a lot of time for Phil's opinions - however just recently he seems to have become sanitised by Sky and has started sounding like a contracted Paul Cullen. Where as before he would openly disagree with both "commentators" he now is nearly always in agreement with Eddie.

An example would be how he questioned the sin-binning of two Wakefield Players (one for a deliberate foul and one for a professional foul which almost certainly prevented a score); yet he heartily endorsed the sin-binning of two les cats players for slowling the play of the ball in centre field - even though there was a strong possibilty that the Wakefield players were holding onto their opponents shirts.

Yet more proof would be his article on business practice including what makes a good chief exec - passionate stuff!

[Nine]

damien morrissey posted:
Le Frogs are immune from relegation for three rears

Outrageous, if they get relegated they should take ALL their rears with them! I know Stains have a lot of bums but I thought they got special dispensation from the RFL to put @rses with no brains out on the pitch.

May I say, on the rears front, that our lads top the league IMHO, and I'm not just thinking Stu Fielden. Well, I am thinking a lot about Stu Fielden, but Nathan McAvoy and Scott Logan get some attention too.

[willie c]

heydude posted:
nice to know saints are so consistent http://msn.skysports.com/skysports/arti ... 82,00.html

carnt say im really that surpised i just wish wigan were in the position to rest players the week before the challenge cup final i know eddie was upset on boots n all but at least anderson said right after the semi final he wouldnt be putting out a full team for this game

[ancientnloyal]

Flash, you really had a go at Phil on your email there.. underpants!!!

[damien morrissey]

Nine posted:

damien morrissey posted:
Le Frogs are immune from relegation for three rears

Outrageous, if they get relegated they should take ALL their rears with them! I know Stains have a lot of bums but I thought they got special dispensation from the RFL to put @rses with no brains out on the pitch.

May I say, on the rears front, that our lads top the league IMHO, and I'm not just thinking Stu Fielden. Well, I am thinking a lot about Stu Fielden, but Nathan McAvoy and Scott Logan get some attention too.

Oops that really wasnt deliberate.

[MiThor]

what do you expect, they got away with it in 2002,again in 2004 fined £25000 reduced on appeal, so why not in 2006, the chinless wonders (rfl) have accepted the team, what about the supporters who have already paid to go to a non event

[jinkin jimmy]

IMO Anderson's comments re travelling by plane in the current climate are valid and go some way towards giving him the excuse he needs to field such a weak team (all the saints players not travelling are playing golf to-day).

I would have thought that the people who rule our game would have ensured that Catalan had an away fixture the week before the Cup Final, thereby removing an obvious stumbling block. I must be confusing them with intelligent, forward thinking, professional administators.