Wane confident Wigan can win at ‘parochial’ Castleford

Wigan coach Shaun Wane is anticipating a tough game at Castleford on Friday evening, not least because of the Tigers’ passionate fans.

The amount of local pride on show at Cas can help to swing the game in the home team’s favour, according to Wane.

“They’ll be pretty similar to last year,” he said.

“They don’t risk much. They get to the end of sets and their completions are high.

“They defend in a good manner, so I’m expecting a real tough game.

“We need a strong referee there, it’s a very parochial place to go, the fans are on everybody’s backs all the time.

“It’s a tough place to get a win, but we’ve done it in the past and hopefully we can do it this Friday.”

Wane sees similarities in how the respective seasons of Castleford and Wigan have unfolded too.

Castleford have endured three close defeats, while Wigan have struggled to find the flowing form of previous seasons.

“They’re very similar to us, we could have won all our games including the Brisbane game,” Wane added.

“They’ve been in every game and have been unlucky to lose.

“It’s a very even competition. Hopefully we can fix up the really important things that we need to fix up, and then we’ll really trouble Cas, there’s no doubt about that.

“I have every confidence in our players going forward.

“I know we can play, we just need to be a bit smarter with the ball.”