Wigan Warriors boss lifts lid on half-time conversation and explains key pair’s absence

Matt Peet has moved to explain why Patrick Mago and Abbas Miski were not involved for Wigan Warriors against Huddersfield Giants on Sunday afternoon. The Cherry and Whites claimed their third straight Super League win as they saw off Huddersfield 44-18 at the Brick Community Stadium and they did so without star men Miski and Mago.

The pair were included in the 21-man squad but left out on game day with Zach Eckersley and Harvie Hill stepping into the fold after being overlooked last week in Las Vegas. Miski underwent surgery in the off-season and missed the Super League opener with Leigh and he was left out on Sunday due to some swelling around an old injury.

Mago has been a key player throughout this season already, but a bout of illness saw him left out.

“Paddy has been a bit ill,” Peet said after the game, per Serious About RL’s sister site Wigan Today.

“Over the last few days there’s been a bit of a sickness bug in his family. We don’t need too much of an opportunity to give Harvie a game to be honest, I think any time we get a chance we take it so I thought he was good.

“Abbas just had a bit of swelling from the flight on an old injury so we just decided again that with Zach waiting in the wings, it’d be silly not to freshen up the squad.

“I went to watch our reserves yesterday and there are plenty of more lads there. I like the look of our depth at the moment.”

Wigan Warriors had to do things the hard way against the Giants and they were second best in the first half, going in at the break 18-10 down after Huddersfield’s strongest 40 minutes of the season so far.

However, the hosts rallied in the second half, scoring six tries to blow the Yorkshire side away and move up to fourth in the league ladder.

“I’m really pleased,” Peet said on Sky Sports. “We knew Huddersfield have got an excellent record in the first half so we had to weather that storm, we did that and managed to come out the other side.

“They were excellent and we had to trust that this might be a game we had to win in the closing stages. The players did most of the talking (at half-time), the leadership group, and it was just a case of raising the intensity of few things.

“It was a great privilege to be involved last week, the club looked after everybody really well. We have a very professional group here, they enjoyed the challenge this week, they’ve been fresh and they’ve seemed to be buy into the things we’ve asked them to do.

“I don’t think they’ve missed a beat to be honest and they seem to respond to these sort of challenges. The main thing was to turn up today which they did.”