Following Wigan Warriors’ Golden Point victory over Hull KR on Thursday night, here’s everything that Wigan Head Coach Matt Peet had to say whilst speaking during his post-match press conference.
So Matt, a very dramatic game, how are the emotions after a finish like that?
Yeah, it was that kind of game, wasn’t it? I couldn’t believe it, I just thought our performance went from good to bad, to good, to bad throughout the game. Hull Kr might well feel the same, a lot of what we did poor was a credit to them.
They do so many good things here, especially this season, I think they do so many good things attacking and defensively. The start of the second half particularly, I thought they were by far the better team. Our discipline was letting us down and yeah, I don’t think we really clicked but the lads never gave in.
Is that pleasing? Obviously things have gone against you in second half but to put yourself in the position and to take it to Golden Point.
Yeah, I’ve just got to commend the lad’s character, their willingness to move the ball and to get the ball to certain areas.
They keep turning up for one another. There’s some good efforts and defensive work and in scrambled defence, but there’s plenty to improve on as well.
I suppose losing your two previous the game, it would’ve been easy for the heads to drop maybe and when you went down with 10 minutes ago, is that just why you’re so happy?
No, nothing to do with the other games, to be honest. It’s just what we’re capable of. We know what we look like when we play well. We know what we look like when we play poorly and, we want to play well for one another, for the club. We can take the results either way.
But it’s nice to win, we just want to play to our standards consistently.
We can look back and say, we’ve got two points. But there’s so much to work on. But what we do have is character and we’ve got that in abundance.
We’ve got that do ‘never give in’ attitude. We’ve got some talent, but I think our work ethic is outstanding and that’s what’s got us the results in the last two weeks.
And Liam Farrell got himself a hat-trick.
Oh, did he? I missed that one (laughs). I thought he was outstanding. You know that when the game picks up tempo, and when you see him in them close games where people are getting tired and fatigued, he’s just so fit because he works so hard and he’s so professional that he rises to the top and that’s why we love him. In the big games when it’s 80 minutes plus, he puts his hand up time and time again.
And of course, going to golden point and you win it with a try after a great run from Bevan.
That’s just Bevan trusting his instincts, isn’t it and playing with his eyes up, which is what we encourage him to do. We can’t shy away from the fact that the game could have gone either way. Hull KR are a fantastic team and for large parts of the game, they had us.
They’re building something really special here so credit to Willie and the players, but it’s nice to come here and get away with two points.
Moving towards the end of first half, Junior Nsemba stepped up didn’t he? Even stopped a try from Ryan Hall.
He did, didn’t he? There was a couple, I thought. Even on the try that was given, you’ve got Morgan (Smithies) flying in and that’s all we ask. If teams get opportunities, we need to make sure that were flying over in numbers and you solve some and you don’t get them all. There’s much improving to do in our defence but it was nice to get the win.
I love the fact that Harvie Hill and Junior played their part. It could be an important two points for us. We don’t get carried away with the league table and league standings, but we understand Hull KR are close. We have to care and to come here and get a win in that manner is a good reward for us.
And I think tonight it’s a fantastic effort for sure, particularly the ending of the game. There were times in the game where I didn’t think it was the highest quality of the game, but I think in sport sometimes what grabs the headlines and attention is the ends of games and its climaxes.
Tonight had everything, didn’t it, including the drone! So yeah, I just think when we look back on this one, we’ll see it as a good two points.
Just on Ethan Havard, has he had the scan now?
Yeah, I think he’s going to be six weeks from when he did it, which is probably the best-case scenario with no operation. It’s his elbow so there’s a bit of damage around there and it’ll need about six weeks to rehab that.
There’s a long turnaround now for Magic weekend, how you going to use that bit of extra time.
We need to get some work done. I just said to them in there that some aspects of what we’re doing at the moment needs to improve and the only way to do that is out on the training field and I look forward to it.
The lads are going to obviously recover as usual, with as you say, a long turnaround after a short one, But yeah, we need to work hard next week because it’s not getting any easier with our fixtures but it’s an exciting period coming up for us.
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