Wigan Warriors bounced back from their shock 62-0 hammering at Wakefield Trinity Wildcats last weekend with a hard-fought 26-12 victory over Castleford Tigers at the DW Stadium.
The Warriors suffered their heaviest defeat in over a decade in going down at Belle Vue last Sunday, but two tries from John Bateman and one apiece for Lewis Tierney and Nick Gregson helped them get back to winning ways.
Matty Smith converted all four tries and added a penalty to boot, with Castleford's scores from Denny Solomona and Grant Millington, with Luke Gale adding the extras, proving mere consolation.
Solomona latched onto Gale’s kick to open the scoring but the Warriors were soon back on level terms when Tierney collected a ball from Lee Mossop before latching onto his own kick and scoring a try by the side of the posts.
Castleford went back in front in the 46th minute when Millington went over after sharp work from Joel Monaghan and Greg Minikin, but an error from Gale and successive penalties put the Warriors in a good attacking position and Joel Tomkins offloaded to Bateman, who then showed a great turn of pace to score under the posts.
Wigan put the game out of Castleford's reach in the final 10 minutes with youngster Gregson throwing a dummy on the left to grab his first try for the club and Bateman touched down in the dying seconds, with Smith converting.
Shaun Wane praised Wigan's character following a difficult week after the game.
The Wigan coach said: "I don't want to keep going on about it. But if you knew what we had gone through this week. There is so much toughness showed in that game against a really good Cas team.
"The admiration I have got for my players, the desire to grind out the win with the circumstances that nobody knows about is unbelievable.
"There were quite a few good performances, they are a good team and are well coached who know how to defend. We are not the biggest team but I thought the way we defended was outstanding.
"The character and the toughness they have showed ranks up with one of the toughest performances I have seen for a long, long time. I don't want to go into detail, but if I did you would be amazed at what they have done.
"Before the game we had people spewing and spluttering, coughing and just under the weather. They didn't like the comments made about them this week and they responded in a perfect way."
Castleford coach Daryl Powell could not hide his disappointment.
"That last try gave the score a bit of an easier look than it was," Powell said. "It was tight all the way through.
"We lacked a little bit of quality in our play. I thought we defended awesome, they came at us in the second half with a game plan that put us under pressure.
"They made minimal errors and kicked well and we couldn't find a spark to get us out of yardage and into good field position.
"They deserved to win the game, they had more ball than us in decent field position and we had to work really hard to keep them out and that drained our energy reserves."
The Warriors suffered their heaviest defeat in over a decade in going down at Belle Vue last Sunday, but two tries from John Bateman and one apiece for Lewis Tierney and Nick Gregson helped them get back to winning ways.
Matty Smith converted all four tries and added a penalty to boot, with Castleford's scores from Denny Solomona and Grant Millington, with Luke Gale adding the extras, proving mere consolation.
Solomona latched onto Gale’s kick to open the scoring but the Warriors were soon back on level terms when Tierney collected a ball from Lee Mossop before latching onto his own kick and scoring a try by the side of the posts.
Castleford went back in front in the 46th minute when Millington went over after sharp work from Joel Monaghan and Greg Minikin, but an error from Gale and successive penalties put the Warriors in a good attacking position and Joel Tomkins offloaded to Bateman, who then showed a great turn of pace to score under the posts.
Wigan put the game out of Castleford's reach in the final 10 minutes with youngster Gregson throwing a dummy on the left to grab his first try for the club and Bateman touched down in the dying seconds, with Smith converting.
Shaun Wane praised Wigan's character following a difficult week after the game.
The Wigan coach said: "I don't want to keep going on about it. But if you knew what we had gone through this week. There is so much toughness showed in that game against a really good Cas team.
"The admiration I have got for my players, the desire to grind out the win with the circumstances that nobody knows about is unbelievable.
"There were quite a few good performances, they are a good team and are well coached who know how to defend. We are not the biggest team but I thought the way we defended was outstanding.
"The character and the toughness they have showed ranks up with one of the toughest performances I have seen for a long, long time. I don't want to go into detail, but if I did you would be amazed at what they have done.
"Before the game we had people spewing and spluttering, coughing and just under the weather. They didn't like the comments made about them this week and they responded in a perfect way."
Castleford coach Daryl Powell could not hide his disappointment.
"That last try gave the score a bit of an easier look than it was," Powell said. "It was tight all the way through.
"We lacked a little bit of quality in our play. I thought we defended awesome, they came at us in the second half with a game plan that put us under pressure.
"They made minimal errors and kicked well and we couldn't find a spark to get us out of yardage and into good field position.
"They deserved to win the game, they had more ball than us in decent field position and we had to work really hard to keep them out and that drained our energy reserves."
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