Super League XXI: Great Rugby League Day Out Marred By Wigan Win

Lee Calvert reports from the scene of the crime, Old Trafford in Manchester, where Wigan robbed Wolves of their chance at a first Super League title.

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The great Rugby League day out in the UK always used to be the Challenge Cup Final. Every April (now August), a significant portion of the north of England would climb onto a convoy of coaches and head south to Wembley Stadium, where the northerners would spend time drinking, being far too talkative and friendly to local Londoners, looking into estate agents’ windows to gasp at how much a terraced house costs in North West London before getting back up north as quickly as possible after the match.

In the 1990s Rupert Murdoch bought the game and created Super League with its annual Grand Final at Old Trafford – the self-styled Theatre Of Dreams and home of Manchester United Football Club – and the sport had another calendar date to get excited about. Arguably this event was even better because it didn’t involve interacting with southerners. And as an event it has come into its own over the years, with 70,000-plus fans turning out in good spirits (many packed to the gills with spirits by the look of them) for a boisterous but always friendly outing.

Last weekend saw iteration number XXI of the Grand Final as Wigan Warriors took on Warrington Wolves. Off the pitch some of the sights encountered were men dressed as hotdogs, a gaggle of septuagenarian women dressed in full team kit, someone dressed in a full Stormtrooper outfit complete with a Wigan scarf – which seemed apt given most opposing fans’ feelings about the pie-eating fraternity – and a man so drunk he was only woken from his slumber when Wigan scored their opening try.

Warrington had not won the league championship (neither the old version or the Super version) in 61 years and will have to wait at least another one as Wigan ran out 12-6 winners in a dramatic if not necessarily classic match.

It was very much a clash of styles. Warrington are all offloads, creativity and angles of running, versus a Wigan team that had overcome a great number of injuries to build their season on a pulverising defence and a level of physical commitment not seen since someone tried to prise Josh Charnley out of his tiny shorts.

It looked ominous for Wigan as Warrington scored the opening well-crafted try, but from then on Wolves looked pretty but little of their play seemed to have a point. As impressive as Wigan’s defence was on the night, and my word it was, Warrington helped by playing too laterally too often and this was largely their veteran legend Kurt Gidley’s fault.

The former Newcastle man ran sideways all night without calling runners on to do the necessary straightening of the attack. On more than one occasion the men in blue passed the ball all the way to one side of the field, then immediately back to the other touchline to find four Wigan defenders marking the outside man. No matter how committed your defence is, this can only happen if you are allowed to drift by a very sideways attack.

Wigan enjoyed plenty of territory early on, but the often wasteful kicking from Williams at half-back allowed Warrington to relieve pressure. A number of high kicks from Gidley were fumbled by the Wigan back three who looked like they had feet for hands for much of the night.

But in the end Wigan’s physical dominance and go-forward, combined with their continued shutting out of the Wolves attack, saw them score two tries and haul themselves level and then ahead with some penalties from Matty Smith. After they hit the lead it appeared that Warrington could pass around all night and never score – something that in the end proved to be true. They offloaded, they probed, they stepped, they even managed to get over the line but were held up by the great cherry and white blanket of repudiation.

Sitting in the Wigan end it was difficult not be happy for them. I still managed it though. Pie-eating shits.