Liam Farrell leads from front as Wigan crush Catalans to secure League Leaders’ Shield

Perhaps the biggest compliment you could pay this Wigan side is that they managed to make a night billed “Frantic Friday” by the broadcasters feel as tense as a pre-season friendly.

The drama was, in the end, nowhere to be seen in front of almost 20,000 Wigan supporters. Incredibly, this was not even a flawless display from the home side despite the fact they scored 50 points to saunter their way towards leg two of what appears increasingly likely to be a domestic treble. But that is the standard they are operating at right now: just too good for everyone else.

In reality, the job was done last weekend when they dismantled Leeds at Headingley to usurp Rhinos at the Super League summit. Catalans, who have been dreadful this year, were never really going to cause one of the biggest upsets we would have seen for some time. And Wigan strolled to the League Leaders’ Shield with minimal fuss.

By half-time, they were 24-6 ahead and it was merely a matter of how many they would score thereafter. Wigan’s cause for top spot was aided even further by Leeds inexplicably slipping up at home to Hull – meaning that even the team considered to be their closest rivals are faltering at precisely the wrong moment.

Meanwhile, Matt Peet’s side are getting better every week, with this their 15th consecutive league victory. Two more and they will have the treble, with the lowest-ranked winner of next week’s elimination playoff games having the daunting task of coming to Wigan and trying to halt this juggernaut. Good luck with that. The League Leaders’ Shield is derided in some quarters as less important than other trophies, but Wigan pride themselves on it. To be the most consistent team throughout the year matters in these parts.

“This trophy more than the others represents the club, the consistency,” Peet said. “For every Billy Boston there’s all of us, and that’s what makes the club a great place.”

A word for Peet too, who has now won nine major trophies in just five seasons at Wigan. If they win the Grand Final, he will be the most successful coach in Super League history with 10 trophies: but the evidence is fairly heavy that he is already the greatest coach this competition has seen.

His side made light work of Catalans and the occasion. It was all fairly low key as Wigan ran in four tries to Dragons’ one in the first half, with the highlight their captain, Liam Farrell, going through to score in the week he announced he would be retiring at the end of the season.

As news filtered across the Pennines that Leeds were losing at home, the job appeared done by the break with Wigan 18 points ahead. But champion teams do not let up; and the hosts continued to pile on the points in the second half with Austin Daniel and Jai Field next to add their names to the list of try scorers.

Peet could afford to take off Field and Bevan French in the final quarter, with an extended break over the next fortnight for all of Wigan’s stars before their playoff semi-final. But Wigan continued to score points, with Zach Eckersley, Adam Keighran and Liam Marshall all crossing in a dominant final quarter.

The trophy lift followed shortly after full time and it was delivered by Farrell with only a fraction of the emotion he and his teammates will produce if they are lucky enough to do it again next month. The strains of Tina Turner’s hit The Best played out as leg two of a possible treble was completed in style – and few would argue against Wigan being exactly that right now.