Whenever the Warrington Wolves and the Wigan Warriors are on the same pitch fireworks often take place and that might well be the case again when they take each other on at the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Friday night.
Warrington have talked a good game going into this match but realistically they’ve as much chance of making the playoffs as I have of beating Usain Bolt over 200m and with a personal best of about 2 days for that distance that isn’t going to happen either!
Wigan on the other hand are right in the playoff mix and a win here will stretch their advantage on the chasing pack to a near unassailable one. Not only will they want to pull away from the chasers but keeping momentum up ahead of the playoffs is another incentive they have.
Back to back defeats at Leeds and Castleford have pretty much ended Warrington’s campaign as a competitive entity. In fairness they’ve rarely been competitive all season and when the pressure has been on and the time to deliver has come they’ve been abject, clueless and very sloppy. Chances come and go at an alarming rate which highlights a side way below top form.
It might be that now the pressure is off Warrington will perform better but this is a physically demanding sport and it would only be human nature for minds to be elsewhere, especially those who know they are leaving the club at the end of the season. Rhys Evans misses this match through injury so Gareth O’Brien comes in for him.
Wigan were beaten by Leeds last week but they troubled Leeds more than most sides have recently and they can take a lot of positives away from that game as well as the fuel that being beaten gives them so I’m expecting a strong performance from last season’s beaten Grand Finalists.
Wigan will miss Anthony Gelling for this match so Ryan Hampshire comes into the squad. Oliver Gildart has been on loan at Salford but he is back now and he’s also straight into the squad but by and large Wigan aren’t going to change too much. They don’t need to.
These two sides have met twice this season already and both have won their home match pretty comfortably. That might give Warrington something to build on here but I’m sure Shaun Wane will be using Wigan’s recent defeat here as motivation for his side.
In the end I think this one is going to come down to form, motivation and dare I say it the better players and that is all on the side of Wigan for me. Their forwards kept Leeds quiet last week which is a real confidence boost and their back line is good enough to open any side up.
Warrington’s conversion rate of chances to tries is poor at the minute and that isn’t going to help them here. I expect Wigan to be at least a score too good for the home side in this one.
Back Wigan (-4) to beat Warrington for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Skybet
Blog RL YTD: +6.05pts
