Three Wigan Warriors legends have come out of retirement for one last hoorah.
These three players include the legendary Martin Offiah. The speedster was an amazing player for Wigan akin to what we have seen from Jai Field and Bevan French today.
He was joined by recent Wigan legend Pat Richards. He won Grand Finals with the club in 2010 and 2013 as well as being named Man of Steel in 2010 in one of Wigan’s greatest ever seasons.
He was joined by former teammate Ryan Hoffman who joined the club in 2011 from Melbourne Storm and helped the club to win the Challenge Cup in 2011 and finish top of the league in 2012.
The trio came out of retirement to play in the Dubai7s with Richards getting over for a try.
Speaking of Wigan wingers, one of their current stars has spoken about how pre-season is going in the shape of Liam Marshall.
The winger, who scored the winning try in the Betfred Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford, returned to Robin Park Arena last week to begin pre-season alongside fellow first team players Brad O’Neill and Patrick Mago.
Reflecting on the first week of pre-season, Marshall said: “It’s been good and similar to other pre-seasons under Matty where we do things in a certain way – it’s all about working hard at the right time and putting effort in the right areas. It might be different from what other teams do but it’s something everyone buys into and it works for us.”
Marshall was part of the group who completed hill running at Haigh Hall on Saturday morning, and on the toughest aspect of the week, he said: “The Friday morning wrestle session. We then went hill running on the Saturday morning which was tough but the week builds up to those days so it’s important you put a lot of effort in before you have the Sunday off for recovery and then it’s time to restart on the Monday. It’s been a tough but enjoyable first few weeks back.”
Speaking on the value of rest during the off-season, Marshall added: “It’s important to take your mind off rugby for a little bit. I was able to get away with my wife which was good and spend a lot more time with family which is important as its a long old year once you start pre-season. Slowly you start to involve a bit of training into the schedule to start building up the body ready for pre-season as you don’t want to be playing catch up when you get back in.”
Despite missing part of last season with an abdominal injury, Marshall crossed for 24 tries in 29 matches. Speaking on the success of the campaign, he said: “It was a strange old season as I don’t think any of us believed we’d go on to the win the Grand Final until the Catalans away game where everything seemed to click and from there we just kicked on.
“It was a fantastic achievement for us as a team – winning three trophies in two seasons under Matty – and that taste of victory makes you eager and hungry to go on and win more. Hopefully we can be as successful in 2024.”
Marshall scored a try as the Warriors were beaten 20-8 in their last World Club Challenge appearance against Sydney Roosters at the DW Stadium in 2019.
Looking ahead to February’s clash against NRL champions Penrith Panthers, Marshall said: “It’s testing yourself against the best in the world and it gives us a clear goal to aim for throughout pre-season. It’s outstanding that it will be played at our home and hopefully the DW will be sold out and rocking. We would love to be crowned World Club champions but there’s still a lot of training to do.”
