Wigan maintain Super League lead defeating Catalans

by NRL

Wigan maintained their lead at the top of Stobart Super League with a 36-14 win against a rugged Catalans side.

The Warriors have been in superb form recently and produced more of the same today as they condemned the Dragons to a rare defeat in Perpignan.

After last weekend's defeat at Salford City Reds, this was a much better Catalan performance and they took the lead early through a Scott Dureau penalty.

There were still signs that the home side were not at their best, however, when - with Gil Dudson in the sin-bin for a late challenge on Dureau - Wigan managed to score two tries - through Chris Tuson and Anthony Gelling - of which Josh Charnley converted one to give the Warriors a 10-2 lead.

The video referee was needed in the 18th minute when he awarded a penalty try to Catalan after Michael McIlorum tackled Clint Greenshields just before the tryline without the ball as the full-back chased Setaimata Sa's kick through. Dureau added the conversion to reduce the arrears to 10-8

Just before the break, Louis Anderson left the field with a shoulder injury and, down the right-hand edge that he had been defending in, Sam Tomkins set Charnley free to dive over - though he failed to add the extras.

Six minutes after the turnaround, Charnley did extend the Warriors lead with a penalty from in front of the posts, given for the markers not being square at the play the ball.

Wigan extended their lead further four minutes later with a superb try that involved Sean O'Loughlin, Jeff Lima, McIlorum and Brett Finch before the ball found its way to George Carmont to score his first of the afternoon. Again Charnley failed with the conversion.

On the hour, the ball was sent to the Wigan left and Jack Hughes managed to offload to the supporting Carmont to score to the left of the posts.

Dureau narrowed the deficit with a quick tap penalty that caught the Wigan defence napping as he raced in from 60 metres out to score under the posts. He quickly converted his own try to narrow the gap further to 10 points with 10 minutes remaining.

However, Wigan finished the stronger and late tries from Tomkins and Hughes extended their advantage. Tomkins took over the kicking duties from Charnley and converted both efforts.

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