Rugby League
Super League
Friday June 9th 2023
20.00 Kick Off
St. Helens 34 Wigan Warriors 16, attendance 17,088
@ Totally Wicked Stadium
McManus Drive
Peasley Cross Lane
St. Helens
WA9 3AL
£30 Admission, e-ticket
Programme? Never saw any.
I had already been here for football. I hadn’t realised it was as far back as March 2012 that I saw Liverpool U19 lose 0-6 to Ajax U19 in the Nextgen Cup semi final in front of a 6,000 crowd. The ground was named Langtree Park when it opened that year, but took on the sponsor name of Totally Wicked Stadium in 2017. The stadium has a capacity of 18,000 and is seated along the sides, but has terracing behind each goal. It is a far cry from their previous home at Knowsley Road, where I had seen them beat Leigh 12-6 in a Division 1 game on 25th March 1990 in front of 9,189 spectators, which was only my third ever rugby league ground attended at the time (I subsequently visited for football, seeing Liverpool Reserves play 4 games there between December 1999 and February 2000).
The Saints-Wigan derby is probably the biggest rivalry in the northern hemisphere, so I was surprised that tickets were still available to book online the day before the game, albeit only odd seats here and there. Rather oddly the attendance was announced as 16,272 at the game, but this was increased to 17,088 according to the official club Twitter the following morning. No idea how they can come up with two different figures in this day and age. Either way, it was short of the ground record of 17,980 that this fixture attracted in both the 2012 and 2014 meetings. Perhaps a major contributor was the fact that both teams are having relatively poor seasons by their normal high standards, as it was only 6th versus 4th as far as the league table was concerned, both at least two wins adrift of top two Warrington Wolves and Catalan Dragons.
It only took Saints four minutes to go ahead, when Joe Batchelor scored from close to the line and Tommy Makinson converted to make it 6-0. Wigan levelled at 6-6 when Harry Smith chipped over the top for Jai Field to cross the line, with the kick converted by Smith. Makinson then went over in the corner and converted his own try to make it 12-6, but Wigan pulled it back to 12-10 with a try from Bevan French. Right on halftime Saints made it 18-10, when Jack Welsby collected his own kick to score near the posts, which was converted by Makinson to give the hosts an eight point lead at the break.
Saints started the better in the second half, as a close range try by Agnatius Paasi was converted by Makinson to make it 24-10, before Welsby went over, again converted by Makinson, to stretch the lead to 30-10. Makinson scored in the corner, but couldn’t convert, to make it 34-10. A try by Abbas Miski, converted by Smith, did reduce the arrears for Wigan in the dying minutes, but Saints were well worth their 34-16 win.
The journey up to the North West was painfully slow, as expected, taking five and a half hours to drive the 230 miles. I was stopping overnight, so didn’t have to worry about endless lane closures on the return journey.
