Wigan Warriors star wary of bogey team

Liam Marshall in the fog against Leeds in pre-season

Hull FC will arrive at the DW Stadium on Sunday with two wins on the board and only a narrow loss to champions St Helens.

It’s a ground that holds fond memories for Hull FC, who won Super League’s first-ever golden point decider here 12 months ago, with an inspired long-range drop-goal from Marc Sneyd giving them a 31-30 triumph.

And Marshall says Warriors have to be on their guard to avoid another shock to the system.

“A lot has been spoken about Hull’s off-season, and the signings they made,” the Wigan winger said.

“I think they recruited pretty well, and they’ve started off brilliantly, with two wins and only losing against St Helens last week.

“They’re a quality side, they always have been.

“And they’ve also proved a bit of a thorn in our side while I’ve been here.

“They’ve won trophies during that period, and they’re certainly not a team to be underestimated.

“If we can match their intensity at the beginning of the game, hopefully we can get them at the back end.”

Wigan got back to winning ways last week against Toronto, after putting in a much-improved display than the previous week’s loss at Castleford.

The Canadian side hung in there for three-quarters of an entertaining contest in front of the Sky cameras, before Wigan cut loose in the final final quarter.

“I thought we did a lot of good things against Toronto,” acknowledged Marshall.

“Our discipline the week before at Castleford was poor, and it was something we wanted to rectify.

“As games go, Toronto was far more what we’re looking at.

“We ground them down for 60 minutes, and posted some points in the last 20.

“It was probably a bit closer than the fans would have liked, but it is something we do work on.

“We want to outwork teams, outlast teams, and I thought we did that last week.”

Warriors have conceded only 36 points in their three matches played so far, and Marshall says that’s a result of hard work over the winter.

“We did a massive amount of work on defence in pre-season,” he revealed.

“Matty Peet came back in part way last year, and we saw immediate improvements.

“And on the back of a full pre-season, we’ve seen even more.

“It’s great to have a coach specifically for defence, it’s really helped us.

“To be conceding only two tries a game is obviously very good, and if we can keep teams to that we’ll give ourselves a big chance of winning games.”