The best club team on the planet will be confirmed on Saturday night when the champions of the Super League and the NRL battle it out in the World Club Challenge as Wigan Warriors host the Penrith Panthers at the DW Stadium.
St Helens beat the Panthers in Australia in this competition last year so Penrith won’t be short of motivation here. Wigan have already played a match in the Super League and will hope that gives them a competitive advantage here.
Where to watch
The match will be able to be watched on BBC Two or the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Action channels. The build-up begins at 7.30pm ahead of the 8pm kick off.
Wigan Warriors
The Wigan Warriors have already signalled their intention to make a successful defence of their title this season with a very comfortable win over Castleford Tigers in their Super League opener last weekend. That had a banana skin sort of feel to it as well because of the insanely tough conditions it was played in but to be fair to Wigan they kept their heads early in that game and then eventually ground their opponents down and ran out convincing winners.
Scoring points has generally been the buzz focus for this Wigan side but it was impressive that they kept their opponents try-less throughout the 80 minutes. Their defence is going to need to be equally as tough here because they are probably going to struggle to dominate Penrith at the other end of the field. If their defence is tight they will hope that the likes of Jai Field or Bevan French can do something magical to win the title for them.
Penrith Panthers
The Penrith Panthers have won the NRL for three successive seasons, which immediately will highlight the size of the task for the Wigan Warriors in this match. They were unable to win this competition on home soil last season though so it will be interesting to see if they fare any better with them having had to make the long trip to England for the game. They have spoken about that loss last year in the build-up to this game so it clearly haunts them.
One area of concern for the Panthers is that they haven’t had a match in English conditions to familiarise themselves with things. We do know from the TV coverage on Friday night that they have been training and had a hit out with Warrington earlier in the week but they haven’t played since winning the NRL title and you wonder if that will play a part in heavy conditions. One positive for the Panthers is they have the best player in the world game in their ranks right now.
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Team News
Wigan Warriors hooker Kruise Leeming is expected to play in this match despite picking up an ankle injury last week. Luke Thompson will be missing though so Matty Peet will be forced into one change for this showpiece clash.
Penrith Panthers will be without their Samoan half-back Jarome Luai for this World Club Challenge match but his partner in crime, Nathan Cleary, has been named in the squad for this one. Stephen Crichton and Jack Cogger have moved on since last season.
Betting
The Penrith Panthers are a high quality side there is no doubt about that but they are missing a couple of players who had decent seasons last term who have moved on while the ball carrying of Jarome Luai won’t be a threat for the Wigan Warriors here either. I just can’t get away from the fact that Penrith haven’t played a match for so long. Even on home soil last season they couldn’t get the competitive rust out of their system in time to win so with the jet lag and other factors here that has to be relevant.
Wigan Warriors certainly don’t have the competitive issue to worry about here because they have had a full league game and a number of pre-season matches in the lead up to this one and they probably had a lot more to give last week when you consider that they would have been saving something for this one. The longer this one goes I think Wigan might get some joy, especially if they can get Jai Field free to run at this Penrith side. I wouldn’t like to say for certain that Wigan win this match but with home advantage and a hit out under their belts I do think over 80 minutes they can stay within eight points in a clash which is historically low scoring and intense. I expect no different here.
Tips
Back Wigan Warriors (+8) to beat Penrith Panthers for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
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