Marshall: We need to go back to drawing board

Liam Marshall admits Wigan fell well-short of their own defensive standards as they tumbled to a third straight defeat.
Liam Marshall scored two tries against Hull FC on Saturday, but says Wigans defence has not been good enoughLiam Marshall scored two tries against Hull FC on Saturday, but says Wigans defence has not been good enough
Liam Marshall scored two tries against Hull FC on Saturday, but says Wigans defence has not been good enough

The winger scored two tries in the 39-26 loss at Hull FC on Saturday night.

But the Warriors’ defence was again surprisingly porous as their run without a Super League win stretched to six games.

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Marshall said: “We pride ourselves on defence and for our own personal standards it’s not been good enough.

“We wanted to get back on the horse after the loss to Wakefield, but we didn’t start playing until the 50th minute and it was too late.

“We’ve got to go back to the drawing board a bit. We’re still doing some things right but we’re not putting together a complete performance. We’re scoring points, but we shipped 20 so early and lost the game.”

With St Helens losing 16-12 at Castleford yesterday, Wigan hung on to sixth place in the table, but are only a point above their arch rivals at Saints have a game in hand.

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Warriors are also now five points adrift of Hull in fifth and six away from the top four with six rounds to go before the league splits for the ‘eights’ phase of the season.

The Warriors now have a run of fixtures against sides below them in the table - Leigh, Warrington in the Cup, Huddersfield and Widnes.

Marshall, 20, said: “We’re Wigan, we want to winning the big games and beating the top teams.

“We’ll look to kick on and get some points - we’ve not had a win in weeks - and we need to kick the season on. We want to be there at the end of the year and we’ll be back, we’ve just got a couple things to fix up first.”

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Marshall says he and stand-off George Williams will be working hard on their goal-kicking in training.

The winger scored the only conversion of Saturday’s match, with five misses between him and Williams.

“It’s something we’ve got to work on,” he said. “Me and George aren’t experienced goal-kickers but we have to do a job for the team.

“It would have been a closer game if we’d kicked more goals. But we don’t want it to come down to that - we don’t like shipping that many points.”

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Oliver Gildart is set to return from a back injury for Thursday’s trip to Leigh. Joe Burgess has filled the left centre role in his absence and Wane will need to decide whether to break-up the Burgess-Marshall left-side combination, or reintroduce Gildart at right centre ahead of Liam Forsyth.