Quote Paul Cooke="Paul Cooke""Having previously talked about this, I feel Wigan are treading very closely to the mark when it comes to possibly seriously injuring other players in this game.
"They have been the masters of the “wrestling” techniques in the past couple of seasons.
"But I fear that if they are continually allowed to twist and turn players and put undue pressure on opponents’ joints, with no protection from officials, we could see a career-threatening injury.'"
He has a point I feel. How long are they going to let it go on for? The RFL must realise by now that Wigan are being coached to break every possible rule in an attempt to take advantage of the weakness of the referees in Super League. Do they wait for someone to lose a limb or potentially even their life before they act?
Quote Paul Cooke="Paul Cooke""But for brother Sam to join in and launch a few punches into the back of Yeaman’s head while the original two were at it is a complete cheap shot.
"Sam is a player who spends too much time trying to push the rules, rather than just using his ability.
"When he is tackled he is always trying to milk penalties by wrapping his arms, legs or even blatantly holding on to the defending player.
"Sam is without doubt an extremely good rugby league player, but has come in for this criticism now for at least the first four rounds of Super League.'"
Again, absolutely spot on. Cooke clearly has me on an RSS feed. But again, like me, he is right. Young Sam is obsessed with cheating and it is totally to the detriment of his performances.
Quote Paul Cooke="Richard Agar""If you look back at the brawl, maybe they were lucky to get just one bloke sent off.
"I'm quite happy that our blokes responded in the way they did because, if they are not going to get the right protection during the game, they're entitled to do that.
"I just hope when the League review the game tomorrow, they are watching every tackle."'"
Again, very true. When are the RFL going to do something about it? It's not the blatant thuggery I'm concerned about, the referees and disciplinary committee can at least deal with those infractions to some degree as seen by the obvious bans handed out to the Kray twins. It's the constant attempts to hurt the ball carrier through forcing joints as Cooke mentions. This shows people with a lot of knowledge on the game have made the same observations.
