The spirit of Adam Watene loomed large over the JJB Stadium where injury-hit Wakefield pulled off a shock victory in their opening engage Super League match.

The 100-1 title outsiders are dedicating 2009 to their popular former player, who collapsed and died of a heart attack in October and was their inspiration behind Sunday's stunning result.

Their heroic efforts were typified by skipper Jason Demetriou, wearing the number eight of the Cook Island international who led his team superbly.

Wigan, who had Australians Mark Riddell and Amos Roberts on debut, were a big disappointment and left the field to boos from the 14,377 crowd.

Missing eight regulars through injury and illness, the Wildcats outplayed their highly-fancied hosts for long periods.

They led 10-0 at half-time thanks to a brace of tries from debutant winger Dave Halley and it could have been more for they had two other touchdowns disallowed.

Wakefield, who gave a debut to Australian prop forward James Stosic, made light of the absence of regular half-backs Danny Brough and Jamie Rooney, with Sam Obst, Brad Drew and Scott Grix combining superbly to cause all sorts of problems for the home side.

With his clever kicking game and deft handling, Drew demonstrated just why Huddersfield are so keen to take him back to the Galpharm Stadium while the elusive Grix picked up from where he left with Ireland in the World Cup.

The finishing was provided by 22-year-old Halley, whose amazing start was straight from the pages of Boys Own, stuff from which dreams are made.

Halley, who is on a month's loan from Bradford, finished off a break from Demetriou to open the scoring after just 56 seconds and collected Obst's grubber kick to add a second on 12 minutes.

Wigan created little in the first half and, when second rower Gareth Hock dummed his way over, he dropped the ball over the line.

Demetriou also lost his grip on the ball over the tryline before going off with a wrist injury while stand-off Grix also had a try disallowed for a double movement.

Wigan were simply awful in the first half but they looked much livelier after coach Brian Noble's half-time pep-talk.

Prop Andy Coley dropped the ball stretching for the line but the home side eventually found their scoring touch when skipper Sean O'Loughlin sent over substitute Joel Tomkins following a break by scrum-half Thomas Leuluai.

Pat Richards added the goal but Martin extended the Wildcats' advantage with a 54th-minute penalty and Wigan were reduced to 12 men on 65 minutes when full-back Richard Mathers was sin-binned for a trip on Halley.

The Warriors produced their best rugby of the match during Mathers' absence but continued to come up with the errors and, although Martin missed a chance to make sure of the win when he hit the woodwork with a penalty, the Wildcats hung on for a richly-deserved win.