Super League: St Helens 22-4 Wigan Warriors - Saints win bruising derby

Tommy Makinson was influential for St Helens in this win over their biggest rivals

St Helens delivered a relentless performance in a bruising Super League derby victory against Wigan Warriors in front of a sell-out 17,980 crowd.

Jai Field burst through off an inside ball to scorch in for an early Wigan try but Tommy Makinson's spectacular corner dive brought the hosts level.

Jonny Lomax finished off a Makinson break for a half-time lead and Joe Batchelor's try extended the advantage.

Mark Percival finished off a fumbled kick to kick-start the Saints' party.

Abbas Miski was close to a consolation for Wigan, but had his foot in touch.

The attritional, physical nature of this most ferocious of rivalries came at a cost to both teams,

Saints lost back-row forward Morgan Knowles to a failed head injury assessment and Wigan saw half-back Tommy Leuluai sidelined by a potential cruciate ligament problem.

Wigan might also have an eye on the events of the disciplinary review, after Sam Powell was sin-binned for a dangerous tackle on Jon Bennison.

After the fireworks that greeted the players at a packed Totally Wicked Stadium, the on-pitch action was just as explosive.

Liam Farrell spilled with the line beckoning in the opening seconds, while Makinson was ankle-tapped by Bevan French on the gallop - as the sides set an early tone.

Both teams were intense in their defence, with hit after shuddering hit, while Field's superb burst kick-started the scoring as he burned Saints on the outside to finish.

Yet having had two scores chalked off by the video referee, eventually Saints made their pressure pay with a try from Makinson, beautifully played in by Konrad Hurrell.

Makinson played in Lomax to score under the posts, and the momentum carried on after the break when Percival teed up Batchelor to score.

With Powell in the sin bin, Saints made sure of victory when Percival pounced on a loose ball to score. The home side were then able to relax.

Reigning champions Saints have made another big statement with this success, as they seek to turn last year's Double into a Treble in the hunt for a fourth straight title.

Matt Peet's Wigan will look back to their promising start and see they were able to cause Saints problems.

However, it is the ability to stick with them over long periods that even they will need to grow with moving forward.

St Helens head coach Kristian Woolf:

"Every team wants to be physical against us at the start. What I love about this group so much is that they absorb that and hang in.

"A lot of things didn't go our way but we played tough. I found both calls that went against us really hard to take because, when a ref sends them up as tries, you've got to find a strong reason to disallow them.

"But we didn't allow that to frustrate us, we stuck to our guns and took the opportunities when they arose. We also left some points out there with the missed conversions, which makes it a great performance."

Wigan head coach Matt Peet:

"We started well but we didn't take our opportunities. When St Helens created them, they took them. They were clinical.

"We were in decent shape at half-time but they were much better in the second half and we struggled to hold them.

"We know where we are. We need to be more consistent and be more clinical. It was never going to be a quick fix to overtake such a quality team but we'll keep working hard."

On the Sam Powell tackle:

"We've seen it back and it's not good. Sam is disappointed. It's not in his nature. His technique let him down. He needs to be better.

"Put it down to fatigue and bad timing. You don't like to see any player hurt and I hope Jon Bennison is okay."

St Helens: Welsby; Makinson, Hurrell, Percival, Bennison; Lomax, Dodd; Walmsley, Roby, Lees, Batchelor, Bell, Knowles

Interchanges: Lussick, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Paasi, Wingfield

Wigan: Field; Miski, Bateman, Bibby, French; Cust, Leuluai; Singleton, Powell, Byrne, Isa, Farrell, Smithies

Interchanges: Mago, Partington, Havard, Shorrocks

Referee: Liam Moore

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