Wigan have defeated the Catalan Dragons 46-6 in what was a terrible advertisement for Super League.
Wigan played well but to try and sell this as playoff Rugby League is just impossible. When you compare this to the incredible intencity we have seen from the NRL Finals series, it is like comparing night and day.
Wigan had the better running of the match early on and while the Catalan forwards held their own Wigan were finding them out out wide.
Two tries down the left hand side by George Carmont in the within the first tend minutes looked like it would spell trouble for the Dragons. They were simply being caught short for numbers. They managed to regroup though and had looked the better of the two sides over the next ten minutes, although it only resulted in a defused bomb by Pat Richards on the Wigan line and no actual points on the board.
About 17 minutes into this match the English commentary was replaced by the French commentary on Eurosport which was a bit different. That was then replaced by the sound coming from an on field microphone. Weird!
Soon after Stevo returned to berate Phil Clarke about how great Wigans defense was the Dragons looked like they might have scored against the run of play. Replays showed however that the ball had been knocked forward by a Catalans defender. To compound that disapointment Wigan halfback Thomas Leululai cut through the Dragons defense and scored a really soft try.
The try gave Wigan a 16-0 lead after 24 minutes and things were not looking good for the Dragons.
The Dragons were not looking good and Wigan had the better of posession but poor handling saw them unable to capatalise on the better of the play. Then in the 34th minute a sweepiong backline play by the Dragons saw Lois Anderson slide over. The try was converted and the scoreline was now 16-6. They were back in it, and really, had done well to only find themselves down by 10 points at this stage of the game.
heading into halftime a hit off the ball by a Catalans defender gave Wigan good field position right on the Dragons line. They didn’t need the invitation. Wigan cooly played the Dragons defense and with a nice slight of hand Darrell Goulding went over for another Wigan try just before halftime. The conversion by Pat Richards gave them a 22-6 lead and going into half time, this one looked all but over.
After the break some early dropped ball by the Dragons was once again punished as a nice offload ended in Wigan scoring next to the post through Liam Farrell. The conversion made it 28-6 and the game as a contest was over. Wigan went on to secure a massive win and the Dragons just faded out of the contest, they were terrible in the end.
Wigan looked really sharp at times but they need to get the dropped ball out of their game. While they ended up running out big winners, this was a really soft contest. With the week off now ahead of them you have to worry that Wigan will go into their next game a bit under done. They need to be smashed at training over the next week.
