As others have said it's not disrespect. If you'd heard Wane's comments before the game he certainly wasn't taking Widnes lightly. He wasn't 'disrespecting' Widnes but putting faith in the players that he picked.
Given that Wigan were 18 points up at one point and only lost by a late drop goal and missed a potential game winning penalty he was certainly right to think that the team he put out was capable of a win. The issue for Wigan wasn't a lack of ability from the players on the field it was the fact that every time we went a couple of tries up our discipline suddenly became dreadful and they were piggy backed up the field with consecutive penalties.
Phil Clarke loves to bang on about how costly back to back penalties can be and Wigan were guilty of that time and time again and were making it much easier for Widnes than it should have been. The players should take the blame for the performance (the senior players as they were letting the team down most) rather than Shaun Wane.
The bottom line for Wigan is that quite a few young players have to step up this year to replace the likes of Carmont, Finch and Leuluai. I'm not sure a steady approach to bringing young players through is going to help too much in the long run, so I don't blame the coach for wanting to find out how the youngsters cope as quickly as possible.
