Wigan Warriors: The 18th Man – ‘The key message must be about maintaining discipline, discipline, and more discipline…’
Darren Wrudd:
I am not sure my heart can take many more games like that. At 20 points to eight down, the only ones who thought we had a chance were the seventeen players in the squad. The first half was scratchy for sure, strewn with errors and most of them unforced, a more shrewd opposition could have put twice that on us. But it took some darn hard work from the lads and a never give up attitude to turn that around and I was mightily impressed to see it.
Just how cool a head must Matt Peet have in that coaching box, to have such confidence in his choice of structure in the players to not even use all his substitutions. Now that’s a rare occurrence, Liam Byrne sat on the bench for the game and unless I blinked and missed it, never took part. Was he injured, forgotten or did the coaching staff just believe that the rest could produce the goods.
But when you have a player like Patrick Mago stepping onto the field to seemingly up the tempo of the game single handedly and taking all his team-mates with him, then perhaps giving Byrne a rest was a good choice.
Of course it took some fancy footwork from that young man who must be considered the best player in Super League at the moment. Bevan French makes me giggle like a child when I watch the magic he produces. How on earth does he even see that kick chase try in his mind’s eye before baffling the Hull defenders as he plonked the ball down. I hope everyone watching him play alongside Jai Field, can realise how special they are and cherish these games as looking back they will be stuff of legend and we can say that we were there.
Once more the Hull coaching staff jumped on the old band wagon, ably piloted by East Hull-born Jon Wilkin, crying about gamesmanship. When in particular Dupree was injured, there was an obvious foul play with contact to the head, the accusations of players staying down to milk a penalty perhaps says more about how they coach their own game than how we play ours. Wigan players don’t pretend, they just get on with it. Then we watch Hull winger Joe Burgess leave the field under another yellow card and do the slowest baby steps walk of shame to give his team extra time to get their breath and prepare for the Wigan onslaught. The cheeky smile on his face as he reached the touchline and the fans were explaining to him their feelings of displeasure was priceless and made me laugh. But there was no gamesmanship mentioned by the TV pundits then, funny that. In the end of course, quality shone through and we found a way to win which puts us back where we belong, at the top of the table.
Two more games means trophy success is within our own control but both matches will be no pushover. Leeds have begun to find form at just the right time of year and although they are as a club a shadow of their former selves, as we saw earlier this year they are capable and dangerous with the ability to spoil our chances if we are not dedicated to stop them.
