Wane believes Ah Van red card cost Wigan

Wigan coach Shaun Wane feels that his team were negatively affected by Widnes winger Patrick Ah Van‘s red card last Thursday evening.

Ah Van received his marching orders in the first half of the game, which ended in a 22-22 draw. The dismissal did not help the Warriors though, according to their coach.

“We fell away in the second half,” he said.

“I’ve watched it back four times now, and we did enough in that first half, which pleased me.

“Probably the worst thing which could have happened to us was Ah Van getting sent off, because we seemed to go easy on them.

“But before that, I thought we were outstanding. We did a lot of good things that we had been practising in preseason in the first half, and that’s a real positive for us.”

Wane did feel that some of the behaviour from the Widnes players was out of order, particularly when it came to their treatment of the referee.

He did believe that Matty Smith‘s yellow card and subsequent one-game ban for kicking was justified, however.

“You can’t kick out. It was a petulant kick, there was no malice in it,” he said.

“I saw things that day, like Joe Mellor dropping on the floor and faking being hit, appealing to the referee – some real poor things that they were allowed to do.

“I just wouldn’t accept it from my players, it’s very disappointing that.

“But Matty deserves his ban, and he’s going to serve it.

“He cannot do that, it’s as simple as that, and I’ve told him that.

“But some of the things I saw, like putting pressure on the referee for penalties, I thought were really poor.

“If I saw my players doing that at this club, I’d be on to them straight away.

“Three or four of their players were into the referee and putting him under pressure.

“There’s no place in our game for that.”