squad announced

Wigan Warriors 19-man-squad
John Bateman, Joe Bretherton, Gregg Burke, Tony Clubb, Liam Farrell, Ben Flower, Anthony Gelling, Oliver Gildart, Nick Gregson, Dom Manfredi, Lee Mossop, Sean O’Loughlin, Sam Powell, Dan Sarginson, Matty Smith, Ryan Sutton, Taulima Tautai, Lewis Tierney, George Williams


Wigan Warriors make three changes to their 19-man squad to face Salford on Thursday.
The Warriors picked up a series of injuries in last weekends World Club Series defeat to Brisbane Broncos.
Lee Mossop, Nick Gregson and Joe Betherton come in to replace Michael McIlorum, Willie Isa and Josh Charnley.
On McIlorums injury Shaun Wane said: “”Micky is being operated on next week, it will be a long one but we’ll know more after the operation.”.
He also went onto confirm that Willie Isa could miss up to 6 weeks after suffering a knee injury. Meanwhile Oliver Gildart looks set to deputise for Josh Charnley again, as the England winger sits out with a facial injury.

On The Red Devils, Wane continued

“They’ve played well, I’ve watched all of their games. They beat us in a pre-season game, we had our internationals missing but they still won.
“They’ve got two good halves and some big names, they’re a tough team to beat but if we’re on we’ll challenge them.”

Salford with an eight point start on the handicap looks a good bet. In the pre season game Lui was as rusty as hell (he dropped it about three times - whilst he looks a real handful now with a few games behind him) but they looked a well drilled unit. Dobson is much happier pulling the strings with Chase out of the way.

If we can somehow scrape a win out of this one it will be a very good result indeed. It needs the fans to be right behind the team on Thursday.

8 point start for Salford sounds like a steal considering our injuries and their great form. Looks like Matty Smith is fine to play then.

That's still a good squad even with the injuries you have.

Will the match be streamed live,for those of us who can't attend ?

If it is I would expect an annoucement sometime next week

That's still a very strong looking Wigan pack.

Our record at your place is abysmal, however I'll travel with a bit more optimism on Thursday than we have done before after our decent start to the season.

i would not be at all surprised if some of those players are either going to play with a niggle, or have a late fitness test. if 2 drop out come thu morning, i would not have to get my surprised face out

I believe it isn't allowed under the current tv. deal.

Tierney
Manfredi
Gelling
Sarginson
Gildhart
Williams
Powell
Sutton
O'loughlin
Mossop
Bateman
Farrell
Flower

Powell
Tautai
Burke
Clubb

Smith is in the 19 so I guess he'll play.

Tierney,
Manfredi, Gelling, Sarginson, Gildart,
Williams, Smith,
Flower, Powell, Mossop,
Farrell, Bateman,
O'Loughlin.

Tautai, Clubb, Sutton, Gregson.

To say we've got a few injuries our side still looks strong. It'll be interesting to see how we bounce back and if we look mentally a little shaky.

Any sort of win would be a very good one.

Big game for Salford this I was hoping the wigan 19 would look a lot weaker than what it actually does. But its a game we can win if we play how we did against Saints and first half hour against Widnes.

I’d go with the following:

FB 4 Sarginson
RW 22 Tierney
RC 3 Gelling
LC 20 Gildart
LW 5 Manfredi
SO 6 Williams
SH 7 Smith
P 23 Mossop
H 13 O’Loughlin
P 10 Flower
SR 14 Bateman
SR 12 Farrell
LF 21 Sutton

S 15 Clubb
S 16 Powell
S 19 Tautai
S 26 Burke

Tierney on the wing not so much because I don’t trust him at full back (he looked pretty safe under the high ball against Brisbane, and made a brilliant try-saving tackle) but because I think he’s a better wing option that Gildart, who didn’t look comfortable there at all on Sunday. Switched Manfredi to the left because he’s probably the only option we have got that stands much chance of not being completely trampled by Carney.

Lockers at hooker because I reckon he can do the job better than McIlorum and Powell isn’t in the best of form. Would have dropped Powell altogether if Waterworth wasn’t injured.

I'm not sure Lockers would do a better job than MM but I'd start him at hooker just to keep Powell out of the way for a bit. He's really not in good form at the moment and I worry about us if he keeps starting in place of MM.

I'd leave Tierney at FB just to give him an extended run in his preferred position. He must have taken a lot of confidence out of his solid performance against Brisbane. Williams was allowed to develop at stand off last season and it worked out well for us.

Well I wasn't there to watch it, but I breathlessly listened on Wigan TV here in my local pub (which had some of the locals a bit confused- erratic breathing and the occasional cheer clearly has different connotations down here in Wiltshire) but I'd say that that was a pretty bloody good result.

Definitely take that, a great win in the circumstances.
I was fearing the worst after Salford scored their first try, we looked out on our feet and after they levelled it up there looked like only one winner so to go down the other end and snatch it was a great effort.
Well done



PS, top of the league

Did well to win that, we are definitely riding our luck as that is now two on the trot we have snatched it at the death.

Our scrambling defence was good for the first hour, however they ripped us apart at times, only good fortune keeping them out (interception take by Gildary with a three on one)...etc.

Our options in their forty look bland, and some of our wayward passing was abysmal. We certainly dont look like a team that could score 30-40 points regardless of opposition.

Will definitely take the two again though.

Positives? Thought our wingers looked sharp, Tierney played well, Bateman his usual brilliant self and Tautai looked strong in attack.

7/10

It was a good result. We ground out a win in the end.

Salford put us under a lot of pressure especially in get second half. They lifted massively when Logan came on, meanwhile we had little impact off the bench. Our back 3 were very good.

Salford will blame the ref but he was so poor for both sides. And his linesmen.

Not sure what the ref was like over the 80 mins but the knock on he missed at the play the ball for the winning try was shocking.

Tautai? Not sure he actually dropped it, I flight he did though as well.

There was a dodgy PTB right before Salford's last try too.

It was a blatant knock on. They showed it on SKY a few times.

You know it's dodgy when even Phil Clarke says Wigan "got away with that."

It went t!ts up when Faz got pinged for offside on their line. That was a game changer when we were looking comfortable. Poor decision.

Snatching at the death having been 12-6 and 16-2 before having to snatch it. That's my frustration on radio tonight, we need to deal with good positions by being clever rather than daft.

Great result though. I don't think Salford are a mug side anymore. They put in a good effort. Threw a lot at Tierney, which he dealt with, and to be fair 16-2 was harsh for them to be only 2. Wigan defended the try line well though for an hour.

All that we seemed to do in the second half was to defend our line. We seriously lack some quality, the team doesn't have any X factor