Wigan look very thin on back up players.Taylor and Dudson were second best toHpkins and Parker.

Coyle had a great game and we had the more creative players.

If we had kept the intensity it would have been 50-60.

Great signs and a clear signal that Wigan need to be playing 16/17 squad player s tomake a game of it.

Who counted the gate btw??? A good following from Wigan,thankyou.

Good game to blow cobwebs away. Tommy G my M.O.M today, think we got the makings of a succesful team and once they gel we will be a real force. Ryan had a good game but needs to offload at times ( i know he can see a gap n go but several times today he should of passed). New signings: coyle - he will get more confidence and a great addition, Finnigan - did well and another good addition, aspinwall - think he can rip this league up , penky - Quality niggling halfback that can dominate play. Now i know Rowe aint a new signing but seems to of lost some bulk whilst with the pies. And lastly Ryan duffy now not to be disrespectful but he is a big un, not a player for this league. He looked sluggish and spent most of game pulling his shirt down. I dont think he will see much game time.

All in all looking forward to the season ahead

I thought only Greg Burke of Wigan really showed up today.
I was disappointed with Wigans starting front row of Dudson, Tomkins and Taylor, and as you say that gave the Leigh pack dominance. They also exploited the inexperience on Wigans right edge (Burgess a winger playing centre and Manfreddi)

On the Wigan board you mentioned the Wigan 6 & 7, but I think you're being a little harsh. Powell had to pull out through injury leaving Hampshire, normally a 6 to fill in at 7 and Carberry normally a hooker or back row to fill in at 6.

Just another point have you ever seen a game where a team has not been awarded a single penalty in the match?

I'd put it down to good discipline Brian which I thought was top notch from Leyth. That said, didn't Wigan get a penalty from one of our disallowed tries?

I was pleasantly surprised by Coyle, and Finnegan and Aspinwall look very shrewd signings. Thought Hoppy did a good job down the middle and looks to have been gaining from learning his trade a bit as a prop with plenty of potential for improvement.

The sharpness wasn't quite there for the last 20 minutes or so, but that will come with game time I'm sure.

I think you are wrong about Duffy Peanut. He did the hard yards today. When he has lost that bit of flab he will rip this league up and I personally think we will see a lot more of him. Tommy G or Riddy for MOM me thinks. JTs deffence is awesome and what has Ostick been eating he looks massive round the chest. We certaily have a big pack now. Also thought Jonny Pownall and the rest of the backs were good today. He's got a few selection headaches PR has now. Oh I think Riddy looks the part with that bit of bulk now and think this is his time. Can't wait for the real stuff to start.
Come On You Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeigh.

I thought both teams discipline was spot on today and were a credit to their clubs.

That run from Pownall in the first half was awesome. Great finish for his try and all.

Which try was that, Matt? (Gardner 2, Hopkins, Maden, Penkywicz and Brierley)

In that case maybe it was one of the disallowed ones!

Totally agree about Duffy.........IMO he displayed excellent touches and offloads, a good acquisition.
Solid all round performance who were defensively sound throughout the 80 mins.

Ryan Duffy - BIG UNIT....our new Tommy Gallagher. Went well i thought.

From our point of view I thought we looked impressive.

Had we not tried to score on every play in the last 15 minutes we would have scored a lot more.

Our defence was magnificent and we have a team with an abundance of playmakers.

Hope Johnny Pownall is ok. Did he pull his hamstring ?

From a Wigan perspective the bit in bold was one of the biggest differences between the sides. Leigh seemed to have several players with playmaking ability who read the game well and dictated play. I was particularly impressed with Beswick at hooker.

Wigan, on the other hand, had just one playmaker who was 18 and had only played a handful of games for the under 20's last year. The loss of Powell before the game and Williams being unavailable just limited Wigan's creative abilities. Still, the choice of Carberry at stand off made things even worse and left Hampshire with pretty much everything to do. Whenever Wigan did get the ball in attacking positions there wasn't going to be any real threat.

At least three tries also came from exploiting the poor defence of Burgess. He's a promising winger but his defence is nowhere near good enough to play centre. For the coach to pick him there and then leave him in that position as he continued to make mistakes was just poor, especially with several other players who could have played centre.

It was a naive team selection unfortunately. There's plenty of good young players but most of the combinations in the team today were brand new.

I thought Tommy Goulden was easily the best player on the park today.Never put a foot wrong all game. It was great to see Brierley get some game time at full back as I see that as his long term position. Dare i say another Turley in the making?

Coyle dropped a few balls today and looked a little slow to me but I won't kill him for that. It's early doors as yet and He is returning from a long spell out of the game.

Ryan Duffy did not impress me to be honest. The jury is out on him as he seemed a long way away from being match fit to me. All I can say is I'm glad we are not due to play up hill at Batley next week with him in the front row.

Over all it was a decent performance and good to blow a few cob webs away despite it being difficult to judge given the opposition.

Thought all Leigh players did well hats of to the officials both ref and his linesmen had very good games