Leigh Leopards have seen their star half-back Matt Moylan sin-binned after just ten minutes in their ‘Battle of the Borough’ against Wigan Warriors.
Moylan was sent his marching orders with Wigan 4-0 up through an early Abbas Miski try with the Australian playmaker shown yellow for making head contact with Wigan full-back Jai Field.
Field was running the ball off his own tryline and slipped into the contact which saw him quickly lose height and leave Moylan with no time to wrap or adjust his tackle height.
Referee Jack Smith revealed that this was the mitigating factor that meant Moylan wasn’t another Super League star to be red-carded this season.
Smith explained to Moylan: “It’s high force and it’s contact to the head but there is mitigation and that’s because there’s a rapid change in height, so it’s a yellow card and ten minutes.”
He was however the seventh Leigh player to be sin-binned this season per Dave Woods on commentary for Sky Sports.
Moylan’s yellow card was met with a chorus of boos from the faithful fans of Leigh Leopards with the Leigh Sports Village being a sell-out for the clash.
The game was delayed by a couple of short minutes after the pre-show pyrotechnics left a mass of smoke on the field with Jack Smith holding up play for the smoke to dissipate.
During the time elapsed since Moylan’s sin bin, Wigan have added another score through second-rower Willie Isa with Wigan extending the lead to 10-0.
Isa was quickest to pouch Bevan French’s smart kick and he was able to dive over and score to add to Leigh’s woes.
You can see Isa’s try in the tweet below.
On top @WiganWarriorsRL 👏
Two early tries for the Champions 😎#SuperLeague pic.twitter.com/mBufxUomiZ
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) April 4, 2024
