Jon Wilkin says Wigan’s defence pushed the “letter of the law”

Ruck speed and six agains have been a huge talking point in recent weeks.

Phil Clarke took things to a new peak when he said of St Helens:

“Maybe when they’re prepared to defend on their own try line, maybe one of the reasons why Huddersfield and other teams can’t score against St Helens is that they’d rather slow down the opposition and concede six more tackles in the belief that, ‘we’ll defend, as long as it’s not quick, we can defend our try line for two minutes’.

“Maybe that’s something that the game’s administrators needs to look at.”

He then further went on to state that St Helens secured victory over Salford in 2022 via similar methods, going as far to label it as “cheating”.

“They played a game last year against Salford at the end where they effectively cheated at the end to win the match in the league match.

“I do think that the game needs to be stricter at penalising sides that are purposefully holding down players or concede penalties or six agains near to their own try line.

“We need to see more yellow cards for that type of behaviour.”

Curiously, Clarke’s former team were accused of something similar today as they defeated the Saints.

Speaking on Sky Sports, form St Helens star Jon Wilkin said of the Warriors’ goal line defence against the Championship: “Take note of how slow every single ruck was there.

“Wigan are happy just to push the letter of the law right to the end and slow rucks down.

“They would rather concede a penalty, like any team in Super League would, they would rather concede a penalty than give a quick ruck away.”