It's not about MM being a limited player it's about his ability to lose it.
If MM was the same player, but say Charnley had the ability to lose it, then no one would be suggesting annoying MM. It's not the player we are interested in winding up, it's the penalty and possible sending off or sin binning that we are interested in as any team down to 12 men or constantly being marched up the pitch is going to struggle more.
Personally I just don't think we have the brains to niggle it out of him. A lad going toe to toe will end up getting sent off. Someone like LMS will just get penalized for ball stealing. To niggle a player into being unprofessional, you don't need a bruiser, you need brains. And that's the one thing we lack on the pitch, someone who will go out there, find a psychological weakness and take a punch for his efforts without retaliating in the hope of taking them down a man.
Was it Murphy who did it in the CC years ago.
You have to be tough as you are going to get lamped, but I don't think we have it in our armoury. Should Wigan fall behind then that is more likely to push MM to push his limits far more than any gameplay we could muster up ourselves.
Point being it's not about MM it's about a player with a track record for being a liability to the team when he goes to far. If he can keep it in check then all the niggling in the world will do nothing. I certainly would not advocate sacrificing a player to go and lamp him to take him out of the game as that would weaken ourselves more than Wigan, given his limited effect.
If we had a clever player it maybe a ploy worth doing, but as we don't just play to our strengths which at the moment is tackling.
Cut the penalties and dropped ball and Wigan will have to put on some attacking flair to break us down outwide.
