Gareth Hock put in another man-of-the-match performance in front of the watching England coach Tony Smith as Wigan ground out a hard-fought 38-30 victory at Wakefield.

The Warriors have a patchy record at Belle Vue in recent years but they recovered after falling 6-0 and 12-6 behind early to edge in front 14-12 at the interval, and stand-in skipper Trent Barrett created three tries after the break to seal the points for Wigan, despite a late onslaught from the Wildcats, for whom Danny Brough was instrumental.

But it was Hock who caught the eye after making a mountain of yards in attack and coming up with his side's fifth try of the afternoon, as the Warriors warmed up for next weekend's Carnegie Challenge Cup trip to Leeds with a confidence-boosting away win.

Wakefield flew out of the blocks and, after Brough had a try chalked off for offside, the home took the lead after five minutes through winger Damien Blanch.

The Yorkshire outfit had been afforded good field position after Pat Richards failed to find touch with a penalty and, although Richards did well to knock the ball from the clutches of Ryan Atkins after Brough's clever kick, the ball rolled nicely to Blanch for the easy score.

Brough added the extras, but Wigan were back in it 10 minutes later when scrum-half Thomas Leuluai stepped inside the cover to touch down by the posts, the boot of Richards tying the scores at 6-6.

Wigan were coming up with several unforced errors as well as giving away penalties with alarming regularity and, after Brough hit the post with a penalty attempt, the former Hull half-back engineered his side's second try after 26 minutes with another lovely kick through.

The ball looked to be going dead only for Scott Grix to palm it backwards into the arms of Jay Pitts, who only had to fall over the line.

Brough goaled for 12-6, but the Wildcats allowed the resulting kick-off to go dead at the expense of a drop-out, and Andy Coley made them pay by barging over for Wigan's second try almost immediately.

Richards' conversion made it 12-12, and he edged the Warriors ahead for the first time a couple of minutes before half-time after Danny Sculthorpe had gone high on his former JJB team-mate Hock.

Wigan were perhaps fortunate to have gone in ahead at the break, but Wakefield regained their advantage eight minutes into the second period when, after a 40-20 from Brough, centre Tony Martin crashed through the attempted defence of Leuluai to score in the corner, and Brough slotted over a beauty from the touchline to make it 18-14.

Back came the Warriors three minutes later, however, with a long ball from Barrett allowing Liam Colbon to score in the corner.

Richards narrowly failed to convert, but the Australian winger made amends in the 55th minute when he followed up a Barrett kick and stole the ball out of the clutches of winger Sean Gleeson, another former Warrior, and improved the angle sufficiently to make the conversion a formality.

Another penalty from Richards soon after extended the Wigan lead to 26-18, and Hock ran a superb angle off Barrett to score under the posts for another converted try just after the hour to make it 32-18.

The home side pulled a couple of tries back in the last seven minutes through Matt Blaymire and Blanch again, both converted by Brough, but Harrison Hansen's try on the hooter sealed it for Wigan.