Super League: Huddersfield Giants 12-14 Wigan Warriors - Bevan French double gives visitors win

Wigan Warriors winger Bevan French was the leading try scorer in Super League in 2022

Bevan French scored a try in each half as Wigan Warriors won at Huddersfield Giants in Super League.

French and Jake Wardle crossed in the first half for Wigan, but three Olly Russell penalties kept the Giants within two points at the interval.

Kevin Naiqama touched down after half-time to make it 12-8 to the home side.

However, Warriors winger French then responded with his second try and Harry Smith's conversion denied Huddersfield a third successive Super League win.

In their first meeting since Wigan beat Huddersfield in last season's Challenge Cup final, the visitors capitalised on two Huddersfield handling errors for their two first-half tries.

French touched down Cade Cust's grubber in the corner following Esan Marsters' drop, while ex-Giants centre Wardle was on hand to score when Jake Bibby failed to deal with a high kick.

Roles were reversed after the break as Wigan's Liam Marshall was unable to cleanly gather a kick by Huddersfield and Naiqama, who captained Fiji at the recent World Cup, pounced to put his team four points ahead.

But French grabbed his second after Wigan kept the ball alive from another high bomb and Smith, having failed with his two previous kicks from the tee, landed the extras to give Wigan their third win from five games this season.

Huddersfield head coach Ian Watson told BBC Radio Leeds:

"It was a high-quality game and a tough game. These types of games are usually at the back end of the year going into the play-offs. Credit to both teams for the way they played, they both played tough and stuck in.

"We just fell down in a few small areas and probably a little bit of inexperience let us down. When we were four points up, we started trying to make a couple of things up when we just needed to stay doing what we were doing.

"There are lessons to learn for quite a few of us, in terms of what that kind of game takes to win it."

Wigan head coach Matt Peet told BBC Radio Manchester:

"You know what you're going to get [at Huddersfield]; you've got to roll your sleeves up, work hard and earn everything you get, which is credit to them. We took pride in wanting to compete in one of those games and I thought that's what we did.

"You want to be able to win different kinds of games in different ways. It wasn't the prettiest of wins but what it showed was a lot of endeavour, the lads are committed to one another and that's something you want to know that your team can do.

"We've had a couple of wins with some space this year, but to win like that here is satisfying."

Huddersfield: Lolohea; Bibby, Marsters, Naiqama, Cudjoe; Pryce, Russell; Hill, Peats, Wilson, McQueen, Jones, Yates.

Interchanges: Golding, Ikahihifo, Rushton, Ashworth.

Wigan: Field; French, King, Wardle, Marshall; Cust, Smith; Byrne, Powell, Cooper, Isa, Farrell, Smithies.

Interchanges: Havard, Ellis, Mago, Pearce-Paul.

Referee: Jack Smith

• Super League Show - watch and catch-up here