Liam Marshall recognises need for ‘big performances’ as Wigan Warriors enter busy week

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Wigan Warriors’ Liam Marshall has said that whilst pressure to bounce back from three successive defeats exists, he just wants to do what he can to help the side as they face both Warrington Wolves and St Helens this week.

Adrian Lam’s side has lost out against Catalans Dragons, Hull Kingston Rovers and most recently Wakefield Trinity in their last three fixtures, falling to three consecutive defeats for the first time since June 2018 under Shaun Wane.

That year, the Warriors bounced back and despite missing out on the League Leaders’ Shield, they went on to win the Grand Final, coincidentally against their next opponents – Warrington.

25-year-old Marshall, with the Warriors since 2016, is ignoring any external pressure and hoping that the same can happen again.

He told Prost International: “As a club and with the history that we have, I think that everyone expects us to be winning every week and obviously the opposing teams want to beat us.

“I think that you can spend a lot of time listening and reading to the outside pressure [on us] that there will be, but we’ve just got to focus on ourselves and do the right things as a team to get through it.

“As a group, we tend not to listen or read that pressure. We just do what we do day in, day out.

“In all the years that I’ve been at Wigan, we’ve had a rough patch at least once [per season], and this is just one of those so hopefully, we can start knocking a few results off to get back to where we need to be.

“The start to the year was great, three losses on the bounce is not good but as for the timing of it, you’d rather lose them now than at the end of the year.

“Hopefully, we can start on a journey from now towards the back end of the year and start to get a bit of form together.

“We’re excited to get into those big games, they’re the ones you want to play in. You’ve got to play them at some point. We’ve got Warrington and Saints in a week and if anything, I think it’s a good time to play them.

“We’ve come off the back of three losses that we’re disappointed with, so we need big performances. Warrington have been going well, we can have a look at where we’re at, and hopefully get a result going into Sunday [against the Saints].”

Having nursed an injury of his own earlier on in the campaign, Marshall made his return to action in the home defeat to Hull KR but at Wakefield earlier on this week was asked by boss Lam to carry out an alternative role in a much-changed team due to a mounting number of unavailable players.

Due to suspensions, injuries and international call-ups, the Warriors were without 11 of their first-team squad, so Marshall was switched from winger to fullback, a role which he admits he isn’t all that familiar with but is willing to play in to help the team.

He said: “I can’t tell you the last time that I played there [fullback], maybe as a kid when I was 16 or 17. I think that I had 20 minutes there in an academy game, but I quite enjoyed it, you get more involved in the game than out on the wing.

“With inexperience [in the position], I wasn’t in the right place at times during the match. I’d told the lads before the game that I would try my best to be, and I obviously did, but that wasn’t always the case. Obviously, the result didn’t go our way, but for a second game back [from injury] and playing as the fullback, it wasn’t too bad.

““We were missing lads with injury and suspension, we needed cover there in the backs and Lammy just said he’d give me a run there.

“I play where I need to play for the team, and it went okay, but hopefully we can get a few more bodies back in the next few weeks and the team will start to take a better shape with lads back in their ‘proper’ positions.”

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