Harry Smith had only made two appearances for Wigan in Super League this season before Thursday night’s seventh round clash.
But in an earlier game he had landed the winning field-goal that gave Wigan a one-point victory against Toulouse in France and he did the same thing against the Airlie Birds just as, in each case, the game looked to be heading towards golden-point time.
Those were two very important field-goals and on Thursday night his effort two minutes from the end finally saw off a stern Hull challenge that for much of the game looked as though it was going to secure the points for the Airlie Birds.
That it didn’t was down to Smith and to another two-try performance by Jai Field, who has been such a revelation this season after his injury-ridden season last year.
Field has been a thrilling player this season for Wigan. I had been one of those pundits wondering why they had signed him last year when he managed to play just four games without scoring a single try.
But what a transformation we have seen in 2022!
And I would imagine that plenty of Australian clubs will also have taken note of three things – his performances, the fact that his Wigan contract expires at the end of this season and that Field is still only 24 years old.
With the NRL expanding to 17 teams in 2023, with the admission of the southeast Queensland based Dolphins, who will be coached by Wayne Bennett, I can only imagine that there will be a queue of NRL clubs lining up to consider offering a deal to Field when his Wigan contract expires.
Of course the Wigan directors will be aware of this and I have no doubt that they will be offering a contract of their own to Field to try to tie him down at the DW Stadium.
But the money currently available in the NRL significantly exceeds what is available in Super League. So if the NRL clubs are sufficiently impressed by him, it would be surprising if they were not able to tempt him back to Australia.
Before the game much of the anticipation was for the seasonal debut of Bevan French for Wigan and the return to action of Luke Gale for Hull FC.
I ran a Twitter poll asking people to predict which player would win the League Express Game star award, with a choice of Field, Gale, French and Jake Connor. More than 50 per cent of respondents voted for Field, although as you will see from the report, our reporter David Kuzio cast his vote in favour of Ethan Havard, who is just 21 years old but is clearly making his mark for the team and must be an outside bet for England selection for the World Cup later this year if he can maintain the form that we saw from him on Thursday night.
Havard made 44 tackles, the most for any Wigan player, as well as 114 metres, the third highest figure after Liam Farrell and Jai Field, and four tackle-busts, which was exceeded only by Cade Cust and Jai Field. That’s not bad for a player who started the game on the bench.
But what about Hull?
They came with a stern challenge and for much of the game I thought they were going to come away with both points.
They look like a team on the verge of big things, but they still need to focus on getting the little things right.
They took a 12-6 half-time lead with a brilliant try just before the interval when Danny Houghton touched down after taking a great pass from Joe Lovodua following a break down the right wing from Mitieli Vulikijapani.
So they went into half-time with all the momentum, but then gave away three penalties in three minutes – one for obstruction and two for offside – that led to Havard’s try for Wigan from smart play for Oliver Partington and they had let Wigan back into the game.
Nonetheless Hull were able to take the lead again through Chris Satae’s try after more great work by Lovodua, but Field replied shortly afterwards with a sensational try to level the scores again at 18-18 on 64 minutes.
The last 16 minutes were then tightly fought until Smith stepped up to win the game.
But, as I pointed out on Twitter, whoever decided to sign Joe Lovodua for Hull when he didn’t have a single appearance in the NRL deserves a pay rise. He looks like one of the most inspired signings in Super League this season.
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