Wigan captain Sean O’Loughlin has made the frank admission that the reigning Super League champions need to start picking up wins: starting with Saturday night’s clash with Hull FC.
The Warriors are four points adrift of the top four heading into this weekend’s fixtures – a gap which could increase to six by Sunday night if results elsewhere go against them.
And O’Loughlin, whose Wigan side have not won in five league games, admits that after defeat to Wakefield on Bank Holiday Monday, the club have to start getting wins.
“We’re getting to that point in the season now where we have to start picking up wins so we need to respond against Hull.
“We drew against Warrington and lost narrowly against Saints but came away from those games thinking we’re not too far off, but the Wakefield loss was a bit of a slap in the face for us.
“A lot of the lads are disappointed but it’s not a lack of commitment. Even though it is another short turnaround, we will make sure we do enough in training this week to get over it and hopefully manage to get the win at Hull.”
However, Warriors coach Shaun Wane believes that his side will be fine in the long run as they start to welcome back some of their injured stars.
He said: “I don’t like losing but it’s not through a lack of effort, I look at the big picture and I think we’ll be ok.
“Overall I was happy with how we went against St Helens, I thought we defended well. We had a day off in defence against Wakefield and it wasn’t good enough.
“We did some good things in attack that we’ve been working on but we should never score 30 points and lose though. The fact is no matter what the injuries are we want to be known for our good defence.”
