Wane: We need to improve... and we will

The Warriors scored all 26 points in a dominant first-half, which saw Oliver Gildart, Joe Burgess, George Williams and Joel Tomkins all score tries. Morgan Escare marked a solid debut with three goals from five attempts.

But Wigan were unable to score any more points as they dropped off after the break, allowing Salford to close the margin to 10-points.

“I was happy with the win, but there’s lots to work on,” said Wane. “We did some good things in the first-half and we never got the ball after that, we both looked rusty at times.

“We’ll need to be a lot better against Cronulla, but we will be a lot better, we just needed to blow the cobwebs off.

“We did some good technical things and then we lost our way a bit when Sam Powell went off, but I needed to rest him.

“But we’ll be okay next week. I’m happy with where we’re at.”

Wane admits the looming showdown with Cronulla, for the right to be named the best club in the world, was a distraction heading into this match.

“It’s a big week, it means a lot - it’s 30 years since I played and it still gets mentioned to me once a week,” smiled Wane, man of the match in the epic 8-2 game against Manly.

Salford scored second-half tries through Kriss Brining, Junior Sa’u and Michael Dobson in front of a crowd of 6,253.

Tony Clubb joined Tomkins in returning to the side after an injury lay-off.

John Bateman missed the match due to a back spasm but will be fit for next Sunday’s World Club Challenge. Wane said Wigan suffered no fresh injuries.

He was also unconcerned about a first-half tackle by Anthony Gelling on Sa’u which was placed on report by referee Ben Thaler.

“He grabbed his shirt - I think once the match review panel see it, and the officials see it, they’ll not see anything in that,” added Wane.

Cronulla arrived on Sunday and will be based in London until Thursday, before relocating north ahead of next Sunday’s match. Wigan say more than 18,000 tickets have been sold for the match, their first at the DW Stadium this year.