Of the many egg-related Easter traditions such as egg hunting, egg tapping, egg tossing and (it says here) egg dancing the annual egg chasing affair between Saints and Wigan is by far the most important.
Excitement is building then for the latest instalment of the one true derby as Paul Wellens’ side welcome - ok tolerate the visit of - Matty Peet’s newly crowned world champion Warriors on Good Friday (March 29, kick-off 3.00pm).
Saints have been on a Rhino hunt for the last fortnight, holding Rohan Smith’s Leeds side at arms length in both league and cup without ever threatening to light up the scoreboard. Still, having secured passage through to the last eight of the Challenge Cup and added a fourth league win in five outings in 2024 it was a productive period for the red vee.
Saints’ only defeat so far came in Round 4 of Super League when the 12 men left behind by Mark Percival’s red card couldn’t hang on to a 14-point lead at home to Salford. Meanwhile Wigan - who themselves progressed in the Challenge Cup with a routine win over Sheffield Eagles - remain the only unbeaten team in Super League so far this term.
If that seems impressive it helps that the Warriors have played a game fewer than all but Leigh Leopards due to World Club Challenge commitments. Peet’s side won that too, seeing off perennial Australian champions Penrith Panthers to take the world title previously held by Saints after their memorable win in Sydney last year. Though there really ought to be a Panorama investigation into the try awarded to Jake Wardle and the one denied the Panthers at the death. One with Liam Moore’s face silhouetted out and an actor’s voice used to deliver his explanation.
Wellens has had personnel concerns to contend with during the course of those two visits to Headingley. It all started when Tommy Makinson got injured in the warm-up ahead of the first meeting with the Rhinos, ruling him out of the second also. Percival was already suspended for both after his Salford dismissal. By the time of the second clash Lewis Dodd had joined the list of injured starters while Morgan Knowles left proceedings early with a hand injury.
Percival is now free to play and happily all of Makinson, Dodd and Knowles have been included in the boss’ 21-man squad. That suggests they have a fair chance of featuring given that the continued absence of all three would leave Wellens with only 18 players. That’s the new bare minimum since the introduction of a concussion substitute this year. Wellens is not known for wild gambling so expect at least two if not all three to play their part.
Percival’s return gives Wellens decisions to make in the back line. Jack Welsby is an automatic selection at fullback as is Percival at centre. A fully fit Makinson takes the right wing spot leaving the two left edge slots to be fought over by Konrad Hurrell, Waqa Blake and Jon Bennison. The latter was a try scorer in both wins at Leeds but may be vulnerable to Wellens’ temptation to keep Blake on the wing and pair Percival and Hurrell at centre should Makinson return.
If Dodd is fit then he starts at halfback alongside stand-off and skipper, the gritter sponsoring Jonny Lomax. If Dodd hasn’t recovered sufficiently from his groin problem then apparently the backup plan as demonstrated last week is Jack Of All Trades Moses Mbye. That scenario would leave Jake Wingfield as the man most likely to spell Daryl Clark at hooker.
Clark will be participating in his first Saints-Wigan derby and so will be happy to have the experience of Alex Walmsley and Matty Lees around him in the front row. The ex-Warrington hooker has been sin-binned twice already in his short Saints career and will need to be mindful of his discipline as the intensity and atmosphere goes up a notch or two whenever the raiders from the other side of Billinge cross the border.
With Percival back there should be no need for the use of back rowers in the three-quarters as we saw in both Rhinos games. Matt Whitley operated at centre in the first while in the second it was Sione Mata’utia who was asked to fill in. Whitley should now be among the contenders for a starting second row spot along with Curtis Sironen and the now restored to fitness Joe Batchelor.
Mata’utia may revert to featuring as one of the options at prop along with Walmsley, Lees, George Delaney and Wingfield. Knowles has also looked comfortable at prop at times this season but is likely to spend more time at loose forward thanks to the suspension of James Bell. The former Toronto and Leigh man has been one of Saints’ form players in the early part of 2024 but copped a one-match ban for an alleged hip drop in the cup win at Leeds.
The decision to ban the Saints loose forward for tackling a man from behind then failing to disintegrate so as not to land on said player’s legs was appealed but it seems Mike Rush’s card is marked following 2022’s Knowlesgate. On that occasion the Cumbrian was allowed to play in the Grand Final against Leeds despite some glaringly obvious grubbery on Salford’s Chris Atkin in the semi-final.
Before a ball was kicked in 2024 there was a lot of talk both inside and outside Wigan about how much stronger than everyone else the Warriors would be following their recruitment drive. Their even grubbier Morgan - Smithies - left for Canberra Raiders while Kai Pearce-Paul joined Newcastle Knights. That left cap room to fill which Peet set about doing with the acquisitions of Leeds pair Sam Walters and Kruise Leeming (via a spell with Gold Coast Titans) as well as Catalans Dragons’ goal-kicking centre Adam Keighran. And of course the one which caused the most crowing on the other side of The Great Divide - the arrival of former Saint Luke Thompson after an injury plagued spell at Canterbury Bulldogs.
All are included in Peet’s selection of 21 and will no doubt be part of the 17 which attempts to keep Wigan’s winning run going. It is now over eight months and 17 games since Wigan tasted defeat. The last team to hand it to them? Championship Wakefield who won 27-26 in a rare highlight of an otherwise dismal season which ended with relegation to the second tier. Albeit temporarily until IGM fix the awkward problem of bad results in a few months time.
Peet was able to rest one or two for the cup win over Sheffield but will have close to a full strength team to pick from this week. Fullback Jai Field is a real difference maker with his pace alongside stand-off and reigning Steve Prescott Man Of Steel Bevan French while wingers Abbas Miski and Liam Marshall offer further threat out wide. Miski was Super League’s joint top scorer in 2023 alongside the Dragons’ Tom Johnstone with 27. He’s started a little slower this year, crossing only twice in Super League but only the Rhinos’ Ash Handley has more than the six managed by Marshall so far.
Harry Smith is now a firm fixture in the halfback role alongside French at 6. Smith’s job is basically to get out of French’s way and - if the attack gets that far - take control of the tactical kicking game. And stay away from goal-kicking now that Keighran has arrived from Perpignan. Keighran - whose centre partnership with Wardle looks a good deal more threatening than a Toby King/Iain Thornley combo - has been successful with 13 out of 14 attempts at goal in the early stages of his Wigan career. That’s something which - given the relative chaos and inconsistency around the role in the Saints camp - should make us all feel just a tad uneasy. Sometimes a game comes down to goal-kicking and if this one does then Wigan have a clear edge. Even if that long talked about swoop for local prodigy and rah rah poster boy Owen Farrell hasn’t quite yet materialised.
To the pack now where Thompson should feature and - if there’s any justice - hear a few choice words from the Saints faithful. Here’s a bloke who practicality lives on a mountain of cash in an evil lair and yet - the story goes - forced through a move to the Bulldogs rather than take a pay cut during the pandemic induced suspension of the game in 2020. Now returned to the UK he rocks up at the home of our nearest and dearest. He could no doubt have gone anywhere else. It’s a professional sport and a short career and all that. And it’s not exactly the stuff of Sol Campbell. But don’t be surprised if a certain section of the support choose to voice their disapproval of the career path of a two-time Grand Final winner with Saints.
With Mike Cooper and Ethan Havard out the other front row options for Peet include Tyler Dupree, Liam Byrne, Harvie Hill and Patrick Mago although loose forward Kaide Ellis is a good deal more ‘direct’ than Ellery Hanley or Andy Farrell ever were. That’s progress for you. Leeming is a quality option at hooker but may have to wait his turn to be introduced behind the latest grub off the lawn Brad O’Neill.
Somehow 68 year-old Liam Farrell is still turning in top level performances in the back row. With Pearce-Paul gone there may be a weakness in the champions’ ranks here if they have to keep relying on the demonstrably appalling Willie Isa. Saints have back rowers who won’t make the 17 but who are an undisputed upgrade on the abominable Isa.
The teams met twice only in 2023 which is a low number for two consistent playoff contenders in a sport that still thinks loop fixtures are innovative and cool. The last Good Friday meeting saw the Warriors get home 14-6 at their rented castle, while in June it was Saints celebrating a 34-16 success brought courtesy of try doubles for both Makinson and Welsby. Wigan’s last win at Saints in the Easter fixture was in 2016 when a Keiron Cunningham selection featuring Shannon McDonnell, Matty Dawson, Jack Owens, Lama Tasi and er…Luke Thompson went down 24-16.
There has been a fair amount of jockeying among the fans of both sides for the position of underdogs. Both seem to want to employ the defence mechanism of low expectations. In Wigan’s case this is a late development. As the date has drawn nearer their hubris has collided with the notion that actually they’re up against that lot that won four Grand Finals in a row and who - when all is said and done - are still pretty handy in their own pace-deficient but defensively solid sort of way.
Indeed the stats say that what we have here is the league’s best attack in Wigan (36 points per game) against its best defence in Saints (a fairly ludicrous eight points per game against). It’s possibly a question of which of those two will win out, perhaps complicated by the very real possibility that one or more players will receive yellow or red cards given the new interpretations on foul play.
It might be closer than a lot of our Wigan fans like to think, but I can’t help but worry about goal-kicking.
Squads;
Saints;
1. Jack Welsby, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Waqa Blake, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Jon Bennsion, 6. Jonny Lomax, 7. Lewis Dodd, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. Daryl Clark, 10. Matty Lees, 11. Sione Mata’utia, 12. Joe Batchelor, 13. Morgan Knowles, 14. Moses Mbye, 16. Curtis Sironen, 18. Jake Wingfield, 19. Matt Whitley, 20. George Delaney, 21. Ben Davies, 22. Sam Royle, 23. Konrad Hurrell.
Wigan Warriors;
- Jai Field 2. Abbas Miski 3. Adam Keighran 4. Jake Wardle 5. Liam Marshall 6. Bevan French 7. Harry Smith 9. Brad O’Neill 10. Liam Byrne. 11. Willie Isa 12. Liam Farrell 13. Kaide Ellis 15. Patrick Mago 16. Luke Thompson 17. Kruise Leeming 19. Tyler Dupree 20. Harvie Hill 21. Junior Nsemba 23. Ryan Hampshire 24. Tiaki Chan 26. Zach Eckersley
Referee: Chris Kendall
No comments:
Post a Comment