St. Helens 10-30 Wigan: Saints suffer second successive home defeat
Wigan forced their rivals St Helens to put the champagne on ice after condemning them to a second successive home defeat in the Super League Super 8s.
Victory for table-topping Saints would have secured the League Leaders' Shield with four games to spare but the Warriors turned on the style to win 30-10 and secure their place in the semi-finals with a third win from three Super 8s fixtures.
Wigan were dealt a blow when full-back Sam Tomkins pulled out with a leg injury in the warm-up, but his deputy Morgan Escare stepped in superbly to play a key role in the impressive win.
The visitors were also indebted to second-row pair Joe Greenwood, who revelled on his return to his old club, and NRL-bound John Bateman, while skipper Sean O'Loughlin was a huge influence on his return from a four-match injury absence.
Saints briefly threatened with two tries from winger Tom Makinson but there was another low-key performance from full-back Ben Barba as speculation grows of a return to Australia at the end of the season.
Greenwood made his mark as early as the fourth minute with a break down the middle and Escare provided the link to get centre Dan Sarginson over for the first of his two tries.
In a frenetic opening, both sides had tries disallowed by video referee Ben Thaler, who disappointed Sam Powell (Wigan) and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook (St Helns), while the visitors were forced into some desperate defence to keep their lead intact.
Sarginson scored his second try on the counter-attack, following a break by Greenwood, and Bateman increased Wigan's lead with a solo try four minutes before the break.
After Escare had failed to convert either of Sarginson's tries, George Williams took over the goalkicking to make it 14-0 which was a fair reflection of the Warriors' first-half dominance.
Saints pulled a try back in amazing fashion in the last play of the half when Makinson plucked the ball from the air following Danny Richardson's speculative kick to the corner and planted the ball on the line.
But it took Wigan just 70 seconds of the second half to restore their 14-point lead as they ran the ball on the last tackle and winger Tom Davies reached out of a two-man tackle to score his side's fourth try.
Still Saints came back and gave themselves renewed hope when McCarthy-Scarsbrook produced a wonderful pass out of the tackle to get Makinson over for his second try and Richardson added the conversion.
However, the killer blow was provided by Oliver Gildart, playing on the wing in place of the injured Liam Marshall, who was freed by Greenwood inside his own half and showed a nice turn of pace to round Barba.
O'Loughlin piled on the misery for the home side when he took Sam Powell's pass from dummy half to go over for Wigan's sixth try and Williams kicked his third goal.
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