Adrian Lam salutes "hunger" of his Wigan Warriors side

Sam Powell returned from a two-game ban to score the only try of a scrappy 6-4 win.

While it was far from a classic, Lam had asked for a better attitude from his side defensively - and his players certainly delivered.

Lam said: "I woke up this morning and felt really good and the conditions flattened that out completely and levelled the game.

"The confidence I had this morning got zapped a bit but if you would’ve said before the game we have won 6-4 I would’ve taken that. We just needed the win at the moment and do what it takes. We could’ve managed the game a bit better at the end but we didn’t.

"I felt confident in our defence, it was the best it has been all year and back to how it was last year when they were successful so we turned a corner today off the back of their hunger.

"It was completely different attitude in defence - we had a conversation regarding our defence and it was pretty personal and sometimes you need to do that to get their attention."

Powell and Sean O'Loughlin both returned to the side and Lam added: "Had Lockers and Powell not been there today, you don’t know what may have happened. We’ve had a couple of close games in the season - but when they look in the dressing room and see Sam Powell and Sean O'Loughlin putting the jersey on it certainly gives them confidence."

The victory - five days after beating Salford - moved the Warriors up to eighth position ahead of the visit of lowly London on Thursday.

Match-winner Powell said: "We were 4-0 down at half-time and we said, 'don't panic'. We've not had many game-smarts about us this season but we did today, and hopefully we can kick on.

"We were always in the game, they starved us of ball in the first-half, but our defence was awesome - we really turned up."