The Morning After: Record crowd, fantastic French & yellow or red? 

Josh McAllister
Bevan French, Wigan Warriors, SWPix

Photo by Craig Thomas/News Images

The Morning After looks at three talking points from the latest Super League action.

Fantastic French

Bevan French played a major part in Wigan’s 34-6 victory over Leigh, scoring the side’s first try and assisting further four-pointers for Jake Wardle and twice for Abbas Miski, who made his first appearance of the season in replacement of Liam Marshall.

The brilliant French showed his skills inside the Leigh Sports Village, featuring at full-back in the clash.

Cade Cust missed out due to a neck injury in a change that saw number one Jai Field move into the halves.

Ahead of the clash, many Wigan supporters shared their view of where French should play for the Warriors, having also impressed at the back against Salford in a second-half positional change last week.

French could be given the opportunity to continue at full-back moving forward, with Cust’s timeframe yet to be confirmed, with head coach Matt Peet not ruling out potential surgery for the playmaker.

It was an all-round class performance from 27-year-old French.

Wigan boss Matt Peet also dedicated the win to the club’s statistician Malc Clarke, who is currently in hospital.

Record crowd

Leigh owner Derek Beaumont continues to deliver the entertainment off the field with local band The Lottery Winners performing a 40-minute set ahead of kick-off.

The indie pop band from Leigh join Scouting for Girls and T’Pau in performing at the Leigh Sports Village ahead of Super League action.

And it was a night to celebrate for Leigh, despite the result, breaking their own Super League record crowd of 9,012 with 9,189 in attendance for the Thursday night fixture. 

Yellow or red?

Jake Wardle was sent to the sin-bin for a late tackle on Gareth O’Brien in the early stages of the clash, ruling the Leigh full-back out of the rest of the game due to a failed head injury assessment. 

The blow saw Zak Hardaker shift to full-back, with Ed Chamberlain brought into the action from the interchange bench.

Wardle was shown a yellow by match official Liam Moore, with many questioning if the punishment was harsh enough for the incident. 

Leigh head coach Adrian Lam himself was unsure on the punishment following the game.

He commented: “He (Gareth) was knocked out on the field.

“I haven’t really seen it, I think he (Wardle) only got a yellow card. I think he probably only deserved that, I can’t see.

“There was definitely head contact, potentially a red card. I don’t know, but he was out cold on the field.”

Yellow or red? Let us know in the comments below. 

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Super League Leigh Leopards