Tomkins: Wakefield gave us a rocket last time

Last September, the Warriors travelled to Yorkshire knowing their top-four hopes had been wiped out by results elsewhere.

Shaun Wane’s men were second-best all afternoon as they ended the campaign with a 32-0 defeat - their only ‘nilling’ of the year.

It made for a painful end to the season for the players and Tomkins says it will be discussed in the build-up to today’s rematch.

“I’m sure it will get brought up, I’m sure, it was a horrible way to finish the season,” he said.

“There was nothing to play for and that’s how we played. We turned up and we were disappointing for 80 minutes.

“We won’t dwell on it because the game meant nothing, apart from pride, and we showed ourselves up.

“Luckily it didn’t cost us anything, but it did give us a rocket that we’ve got standards at Wigan and even if it’s a dead-rubber, you’ve got to perform a lot better because that was way below-par and unacceptable.”

Trinity have made a strong start to the season, winning all four of their games to climb high in the embryonic table.

“I’ve watched some clips of them and they play some good stuff,” said Tomkins.

“We know what we need to do to combat it, but our focus is on ourselves and making sure we don’t getting ourselves in a hole like we did against Widnes (when Wigan were 16-0 down) last week.

“We had to work really hard to turn the tide, but if we’d been smarter in the first-half we wouldn’t have needed that.”

Wigan only had a four-point lead heading into the final few minutes when Tomkins picked up a speculative kick, jetted through the Widnes defence and scorched away for a 70m try.

“It was nice to get a try like that,” he said.

“We felt if we stuck with it, points would come just from wearing Widnes down. And I think that’s what it was – it was a lazy defensive chase from them.

“When you see a breakaway try, generally there’s a reason for it and often it’s hard work in the build-up – which that was.”

Tomkins, 28, has been happy with the way their fluid play-maker system is working this year.

He has been starting matches at full-back but moving to stand-off during the match.

“The way I play at full-back I’m very much like another half anyway - it’s only the defensive side that changes,” said Tomkins, who started his career as a halfback before being converted into a No.1 by Michael Maguire.

“You get more bumps and bangs at half, but you cover more metres at full-back, so I get the worse of both worlds!”

Another change this year has been the goal-kicking role.

He has worked with England RU legend Charlie Hodgson during the off-season and had another session on Friday.

“It’s obviously not something I chose to do, we don’t have a recognised kicker so there are a few practising at it,” he added. “I feel I am improving but I’m happy to do it.”