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Huddersfield's inability to raise a team for today's
scheduled Under 20s contest meant that South Wales
Scorpions 1st Team filled the void by sending up a team to
face our Reserve Side. This enabled Ben Flower to make a
return from injury today whilst recent first team run outs
Ryan King, Dom Crosby and "Henderson" Gil Dudson also got a
hit up. Wigan have a link up with South Wales. This
created the unusual situation of our own Tom Spencer
turning out for South Wales today. The Welsh sides other
prop James Greenwood is also one of ours (played three
times for our 20s this year) whilst in the Wigan line up
Scott Leatherbarrow, Jack Murphy, Liam Carberry, Greg Burke
and Shae Lyon-Fraser have all played at least once for on
dual-registration for the opposition during this season.
Ben Flower, Gil Dudson and Rhodri Lloyd on loan or dual-reg
from Crusaders in the past.
These two sides had already met in a pre season friendly
with
Wigan winning 34-4, but this was a totally different
contest to that. This was played in heavy rain on a pitch
that was slightly waterlogging in parts and to be honest I
think South Wales handled the conditions just that little
bit better.
Certainly early on were they took a 10-0 lead in as many
minutes. First try came on three minutes with Dalton Grant
collecting a Jamie Murphy kick in the left corner. Then
Jacob Morgan touched down a Nathan Mossop grubber kick to
double the lead, Lewis Reece's conversion added to the
second try.
Wigan soon hit back on 17 minutes with Rhodri Lloyd
scoring from close range, converted by Scott Leatherbarrow,
but South Wales claimed a third try on 26 minutes from
scrum half Steven Parry. Reece's conversion to that gave
the visitors a 16-6 lead.
Past the half hour mark and Wigan scored back to back
tries to level the scores. First Logan Tomkins scored a
beautiful solo effort before Shae Lyon-Fraser went over in
the right corner. Leatherbarrow converted the first of
those two efforts to leave the scores level at the break -
16 all!
Into the second half and a second try from Steve Parry
quickly got South Wales back ahead. Reece's conversion was
missed but that 20-16 lead ended up being the last score of
the game, despite 35 minutes remaining. The weather left
opportunities pretty limited to be honest. The heavy rain
didn't relent, the pitch got more and more boggy and it was
a dire game to be truthful in the end. Wigan had a couple
of chances to draw level but I think the end result was
about right. The conditions won the game if anything.
The only real positive for Wigan was the hit out Ben
Flower got. He looked good to me with a couple of big hits
showing he wasn't fearing the injury that has meant he's
missed the last five first team games. Looked ready for a
potential recall v Hull KR to me! |
