Wigan Warriors head coach Shaun Wane is ecstatic with his players’ stunning 70-0 smashing of the London Broncos in the Challenge Cup semi-final on Saturday.
Pat Richards ran in two of the Warriors 12 tries at Leigh Sport Village – converting 11 of them – as they booked their place at Wembley to face Hull FC.
The win was a perfect remedy for Wigan’s derby defeat to St Helens last week and Wane was delighted his players put that behind them.
“I’m ecstatic with the win,” he said.
“We’ve had a tough week with it being short and to come up with a performance like that, concentrating the way we did, it’s all credit to the players.
“It shows the mental toughness of the players. And to defend as tough as they did in the last five minutes was typical of their attitude today.”
After an even start, the Warriors broke the deadlock when Darrell Goulding side-stepped from the play-the-ball to weave his way over before Pat Richards converted.
Wigan doubled their lead when a quick offload from Blake Green allowed a charging Lee Mossop to score with Richards adding the extras.
Only minutes later the Warriors had scored again when the returning Sam Tomkins jinxed his way through the static Broncos defence to touchdown as Richards made it a hat-trick of conversions.
The rampant Warriors scored again when Green latched onto a bouncing kick through to score leaving Richards a simple kick beneath the posts.
Richards then increased Wigan’s lead to 30 points, finishing off a flowing Warriors move before converting his own try.
Minutes later Wigan had their sixth try when captain Sean O’Loughlin broke the Broncos’ line and shrugged off defenders to put Josh Charnley in at the corner.
Wigan began the second-half well and got their reward when Scott Taylor powered over after a penalty for a high tackle gave the Warriors excellent field position.
Richards landed his sixth kick of the day and moments later he was adding his seventh after Matty Smith broke through several Broncos tackles to touchdown.
The Wigan winger then added – and converted – his second try of the day after another excellent offload from Green sent him over in the corner.
Richards turned provider for the Warriors’ next score, playing in Liam Farrell to make the score 56-0, before splitting the posts to add the conversion.
The Warriors were almost scoring at will and duly got another when Ian Thorniley ran in their 11th try of the day with Richards converting.
Charnley then completed the record-breaking rout scoring the 100th try of his career with Richards converting to seal a memorable day for the Warriors.
And while Wane was impressed with the effort from all his players, he praised his captain, Sean O’Loughlin for stepping up and leading from the front.
“He really impressed me,” he added. “The last game he played, he was outstanding.
“Since coming back from injury, he’s played two games and he has played like a captain and a leader – like he has done as long as I’ve known him.”
Image courtesy of SuperleagueTV via YouTube, with thanks.
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