Shaun Wane remaining grounded after Warriors win big on opening night

Posted Saturday, February 03, 2018 by PA

Shaun Wane is refusing to get carried away despite watching his Wigan side kick off their Betfred Super League campaign with a dominant 40-12 victory at Salford.

After a cagey first half, Wane’s men cut loose after the break, plundering 30 points while Salford could only muster one try in response.

Wane said: “I thought we did some good things in the game and overall I was happy with the result and I would have taken that before the game.

“We are not the biggest team but we played with some good energy and ball movement. There are things we practice that every day so it was good to see it out on the pitch but we can work on.

“We won’t get carried away because we will need to be a lot better to beat Hull next week.

“I thought some of the detail in our defence was a bit off but that’s something we can fix. We looked comfortable when we made changes and the players handled adversity really well.”

Salford coach Ian Watson, whose team got on the scoreboard through Kris Welham and Niall Evalds, said:
“The first game is always hard. I thought we were great in the first half and we looked pretty comfortable.

“But Wigan’s left edge tore us apart with the likes of George Williams and Oliver Gildart. We knew all about it and had prepped for it but dealing with it is something else.

“Wigan were outstanding to be fair – they executed well and took their opportunities. But we conceded some dumb penalties, had poor ball control and completion and made some bad reads defensively.

“We need to show some resilience after conceding some quick tries but we crumbled. We have had a good pre-season and we were confident in what we could do as a group.

“It’s been a tough start but the big thing is that we bounce back at Wakefield.”

Watson said that Kiwi winger Manu Vatuvei had undergone surgery on Friday and he would probably be out for the season.