The Liam Farrell column: '˜I'm disappointed with myself for getting banned'

My 200th game for Wigan didn't go as I'd hoped.
Liam Farrell led Wigan out for his 200th game for WiganLiam Farrell led Wigan out for his 200th game for Wigan
Liam Farrell led Wigan out for his 200th game for Wigan

We lost the game, I was sinbinned for dissent, and I’ve since copped a one-game ban.

I’m really disappointed with myself for speaking to the referee like I did. When Hull went over for their fourth try, the frustration got the better of me, and I took it out on referee Phil Bentham.

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Now, I’m not going to deny it – I’ve seen the try back and I still think it was a forward pass!

But I shouldn’t have spoken to the referee like I did. I apologised to him afterwards.

I was in the wrong, and I accepted the charge of using foul language to an official.

It means I miss tonight’s game at the Sports Village, and it’s a big one for both sides.

It goes without saying Leigh will be well up for this one.

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It’s their biggest derby game, and it will be a fiery contest.

Every year when we’ve played in pre-season they’ve pick their game up, it brings an extra per cent out of both sides being a derby, but we’re very confident we can do a job if we play like we know we can.

For the last two weeks, we’ve not been doing that.

It was disappointing to lose 39-26 at Hull FC.

We simply didn’t turn up in the first-half, our defence was at a standard that won’t be accepted here at this club.

Even though we got it back in the second-half and finished with six tries each, they knew they were comfortably in front – it was on us to be better in the first-half, and we’ve all owned up to that.

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There were no excuses for it. We’ve had our injuries but Hull had a few players missing, too – if anything they may have had it worse in terms of the number of key players out – so it was disappointing from us.

We’ve not been at the standard we want but, at the same time, the good thing is we know what we’ve done wrong.

We’d be panicking if we didn’t know what the problem was. But we do know that our detail in contact needs to be better – and it’s not hard to fix.

Scoring points hasn’t been a problem for us. We just need to address a couple of things in our defence.

It’s a massive period for us.

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We’ve been on the back end of two close results – the derby and at Magic – and two poor results, against Wakefield and Hull.

And this next month is crucial in making sure we keep within touching distance of the top-four, and ensuring we’re still in the Challenge Cup.

We’re doing it tough at present, but hopefully in the next few weeks we can knock off a few results.

It’ll be good to see Oli Gildart out there again when we go to Leigh.

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No-one here underestimates how good he is, in both defence and attack, and at the start of the season I thought we had a good combination on the left with George and Budgie there, too.

Obviously I’ll be back available for Warrington next week, Lockers and Sam Powell should also be fit, and both John Bateman and Sam Tomkins are getting closer, which will free people up to return into regular positions and give Waney a bit of a selection headache.