Shaun Wane says Wigan Warriors failed to put their stamp on tense win over Catalans

Last night's performance in Wigan's 25-20 win over Catlans has convinced coach Shaun Wane to up his players' workload during the next fortnight.
Shaun WaneShaun Wane
Shaun Wane

Warriors have a weekend off for the Challenge Cup semi-final next weekend, but struggled against a Catalans side missing seven regulars and playing much of the game with 12 men.

The home side led 20-6 in the second half after a red card was shown to Kenny Edwards, but Catalans fought back to 20-20 before a Sam Tomkins drop-goal and Joe Greenwood try sealed the win for Wigan.

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“I’ve made a decision today, we’re going to be in and we’re going to work hard,” Wane said after the game - but he thinks his players will make the most of it.

“I’ll be okay once I’ve put myself through hell and watched it tonight and tomorrow.

“We respond to things like that.

“We’ve had it at the end of every year, a poor performance like that but that was poor.

“It looked like we had 12 men and we were playing in the semi-final, which is disappointing.”

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The win though, confirmed Wigan’s place in second on the Super League table before the Super 8s kick off - and that also gives Wane’s men an extra home game in the race to the play-offs.

“On the positive side we’ve managed to grind a win and get the tow points - that was the most important thing - I didn’t want to play better and lose,” Wane said.

“It was too tight for me, but we were our own worst enemy today.”

And Wane also warned his players at the break they would have to work harder once their opponents were down to 12 men.

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“I just thought we didn't put our stamp on the game, we didn’t grip it, then after the sending off I knew which way it was going to go with the penalties and I knew that was going to happen,” Wane said.

“We just had to defend better but we didn’t.

“They scragged tow tries and we couldn’t answer it back - our attack was poor.

“When Edwards got sent off I told they players they’d have to do some defending because you’ll get penalised - that’s what happens, it’s happened before and we werent’ ready to dig our heels in and defend.”