WELL I never.

I could not believe Wigan coach John Monie's comments after his side's narrow defeat over the Wolves on Sunday.

The whinging Aussie was frustrated because, as he said: "My team could not play how we wanted to play."

I thought that was the idea of having opposition. Why should the Wolves sit back and let the cherry and whites build up momentum and run riot?

Maybe next year we should have one league for Wigan and another league for the rest so that Wigan can get their own way all of the time.

And for Monie to refer to 'gutter' Warrington tactics was outrageous. Let's sit side by side, John, and watch the video so that we can count the fouls from both sides.

Sure, Warrington were no angels, but neither were Wigan. What about Andy Farrell roughing up Lee Briers, one of the smallest players on the field. And what about the consistent high tackles committed by your players.

Pushing faces into the ground was excessive too by the Wigan players but I suppose John Monie didn't see any of this.

The real story behind Sunday's game was that Wigan expected it easy but what they got was a good, old fashioned rough and tumble 'derby' with no quarter given. No matter how good a Warrington team is put on the field, they will always be ready for a tough battle when Wigan come to town. If Wigan were not ready for that, then that is their own problem for dropping their guard.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.