Wigan Warriors’ impressive youth systems continue to shine with some of their players among the victorious Lancashire side that defeated Yorkshire in game one of this year’s Academy Origin series.
Whilst not a concept that is played at the senior level, Yorkshire versus Lancashire remains part of the Academy calendar and it was the Red Rose that won game one on over the weekend at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
The two-game series will conclude this coming weekend with game two to be played at Castleford Tigers’ OneBore Stadium and Yorkshire know that they will need to win and overturn a 30-14 deficit if they’re to come out of the series victorious.
Lancashire’s six tries all came from Wigan Warriors players, whilst they were also coached by Wigan’s Shane Eccles. The Warriors’ Sam Dickenson scored twice, as club teammates Zak Bielecki, Harrison Pearson, Charlie Jeffrey-Scott and Tom Farrimond also crossed over in the contest.
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How Wigan Warriors helped Lancashire win game one of Academy Origin
The Red Rose opened the scoring through Bielecki and then the first of Dickenson’s two tries with Pearson scoring to make it 14-0, though Yorkshire pulled it back to 14-10 by the break as Warrington’s Bailey Lund and Wakefield’s Corey Abraham scored.
A try from Huddersfield’s Lewis Jagger, who has recently signed a new three-year deal at the club, levelled the game at 14-14 but three tries from three Wigan youngsters secured the win for Lancashire.
Part of the reason why the game was so intense was because seven-man benches were used with the number of interchanges increased from eight to ten, something that the Head of England Pathways, Paul Anderson, explained was designed to ‘keep the match intensity up’.
It also ensures more players are exposed to this competitive environment with each county having previously named a 24-man squad, with Wigan boasting an impressive 12 of the 48 players across the two squads. Warrington also had 11, meaning the two Super League clubs accounted for almost half of the players selected, and it was the Warriors’ young stars who shone this past weekend.
