Wigan coach Shaun Wane knew former Hull Kingston Rovers stand-off Blake Green would make his mark against his old club as the Warriors ran riot at MS3 Craven park on Monday.
The 6-84 success was a record score for the Warriors since Super League began, beating their previous best of 78-4 over Workington Town in 1996.
Green scored a hat-trick in the Wigan’s 15-try display and the former Hull K.R. talisman was heavily involved in organising the Warriors’ attack which earned his coach’s praise.
“He was a bit nervous this morning in our hotel. I could sense he wanted to get in and get playing – he was great,” said Wane.
“I knew we were in the zone and I could tell at our team meeting this morning that we were focused.
“This is not one of those places you can come half-cooked. You need to be full-on and the players were.”
Wigan’s efficient 15-try display sees the Warriors remain top of the league table and the result stretches their run of two wins from two over the Easter period to four years.
Only a Greg Eden try on the stroke of half-time interrupted a steady flow of scores, with Matty Smith, Chris Tuson and Iain Thornley all bagging braces.
“Sometimes that happens in games where everything goes right. I was pleased with our attack,” added Wane.
“We’ve been talking about our mentality and making sure we concentrate. We had a ten-minute spell in the second half where we threw a couple of balls away and didn’t finish our sets off but apart from that we were squeaky clean.
“We’ve looked after the players and spent a lot of money in making sure they were in good nick today. It was the players’ mentality as well. I don’t want them to be thinking about the match three days ago.”
The only sour point came early on when the jet-heeled Josh Charnley had to be replaced after scoring his 11th try of this year’s campaign.
Wane revealed Charnley needed 15 stitches to a cut on his Achilles.
Image courtesy of SuperLeague TV, via YouTube, with thanks
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