Wigan Warriors: Joe Shorrocks says he's excited to experience the buzz of facing St Helens at the Magic Weekend

Matty Peet’s side face their locals rivals St Helens on Saturday afternoon (K.O. 4.45pm), in the second game of the first day of action at St James’ Park.

Shorrocks is excited to experience the atmosphere at the home of Newcastle United, and states Wigan are fully focused on themselves ahead of the match with Kristian Woolf’s side.

He said: “It’s a massive game for us, with it being a Wigan and Saints derby, but being at the Magic Weekend in Newcastle is a big occasion for every club. It’s very exciting.

“The atmosphere is brilliant there, I’m sure everyone gets a real buzz off it. I went to my first one last year against Warrington, so this should be good as well.

“It’s obviously been 10 years since we faced St Helens at the Magic Weekend, and as always against them, it will mean more than usual.

“I’m really looking forward to it. We know they are the benchmark that we are trying to strive to be. They’ve been at top of the table for the last three years, so we are hoping to get there.

“We are always striving to be better.

“We are just concentrating on ourselves, we know it’s about our game. It’s a big occasion so we don’t want to just focus on them. We want to play our best.

“Obviously a win would give us massive confidence. Going into the backend of the year we want to hit our best form, and I feel like we are building towards that with the wins after the Challenge Cup.

“We could’ve had a dip, but I don’t feel like we’ve done that, we’ve carried on upwards. This will be our biggest test so far, so we are hoping for a good performance.

“We are in a really good place culturally. We are all together and on the pitch we are doing good things. We need to put an 80 minutes performance together, and just get better week by week.”