Wigan humilate scoreless St Helens to reach Challenge Cup final

The Challenge Cup kings have done it again. For the first time in a long time, Wigan Warriors were underdogs going into this semi-final against their fiercest rivals, St Helens, with four successive Super League defeats before stopping the rot last week against promoted Bradford.

In contrast, St Helens sit joint-top of Super League and had won their past five games. It all leaned into their being only one winner, but for the 34th time the Warriors have reached the final.

Wigan will face either Hull KR or Warrington Wolves, who square off in the second semi-final on Sunday, at Wembley on 30 May and whoever gets through they will face a side hungry for silverware having failed to win anything last season: the first time that has happened during Matt Peet’s first four years in charge.

“I woke up this morning and it’s the most confident I’d felt for a few years,” he said. “The desire to really turn up for one another, get the job done and make some special efforts was brilliant. Just the smell of the place leading up to it … where the lads were and getting some players back, I could just feel it.”

Challenge Cup semi-finals should not be this easy. Wigan held their biggest rivals at arm’s length after a display from St Helens that can be best described as insipid. Paul Rowley may point to the loss of his captain, Matty Lees, after the opening tackle of the game as a major factor and, yes, it would have hardly helped, but Saints were devoid of ideas in attack.

Jack Farrimond celebrates after scoring Wigan’s first try. Photograph: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com/Shutterstock

Losing to Wigan in any game is unacceptable for St Helens. Doing it in a semi-final is close to unforgivable. Doing it in this manner? That erodes a lot of the credit Rowley and his players have built up in their strong start to the season.

“The big moments, we’ll look back at it and look at the tries we conceded and be disappointed,” Rowley said. “But we’ll also be disappointed by the fact we didn’t put ourselves in the picture by having enough excitement and energy at the right times.”

Jack Farrimond’s early try put Wigan in control, but Saints should have responded given the amount of possession they enjoyed after falling 6-0 behind. Instead, the damage was done in a brutal nine minutes before half-time when the Warriors scored three more tries to put the tie almost beyond doubt.

Two of them came from the winger Zach Eckersley, who finished wonderful set moves to put them in complete control. When Jake Wardle picked off a lazy pass to intercept and score on the stroke of half-time, Saints were 22 points behind and almost entirely out of it.

They had to score first after half-time and quickly, but the pattern repeated itself after the break. Spells of pressure ended with Saints serving up tame attacking play that Wigan were able to deal with easily.

Wigan did not really need to score again, but they did cross for two more tries in the final minutes through Farrimond and Adam Keighran and you would not back against a record-extending 22nd cup final win if they are in this mood.