Wigan Warriors 40, Halifax Blue Sox 6 ANY hopes Halifax harboured of maintaing their unbeaten tag were quickly crushed by the formidable Warriors.

The visitors arrived at Central Park full of confidence after winning their two opening Super League games but their aspirations were soon in tatters.

John Monie's boys are getting better with every match and they were again in devastating mood and completely outclassed the Blue Sox.

Inspired by the brilliance of Tony Smith and Andy Farrell the Warriors produced flowing rugby and had the speed and power which Halifax could do little to contain.

It left Monie a contented coach: "I gave them a blast at half-time about letting in the try but I was happy overall with our defence. We defended a lot of sets of six inside our 20 and the defence was outstanding.

"I felt if we tackled well in the middle of the park and stopped their big guys, they didn't have the players to break us on the edges and that was how it worked.

"We played some good foootball. A couple of our tries looked easy but we worked hard to get into those situations." Such was Wigan's second-half dominance that Monie was able to experiment by switching players around.

"I wanted to see how we operate without Smith and Farrell. I wanted other people to take responsibility," he added.

The changes restricted Wigan's final points tally but few would have complained after witnessing another awesome display.

Halifax started strongly, with former Wigan powerhouse Kelvin Skerrett and Karl Harrison providing a formidable front-row, but the lack of mobility of the veterans worked in the Warriors' favour.

Mark Bell, back after a hamstring strain, scored his first Super League try in the seventh minute, before the energetic Denis Betts burst through to grab a second. Halifax hit back when Damian Gibson slipped over and Chris Chester goaled, but two minutes before the break man-of-the-match Gary Connolly produced an electric turn of pace to score an excellent individual try. Farrell tagged on his third conversion.

The Warriors had a storming start to the second-half and within three minutes Robbie McCormack shrugged off a high tackle before getting the ball out for Kris Radlinski to score.

Three minutes later and Smith shot through a gap to grab a touchdown before McCormack burrowed his way over in the 55th minute. Farrell added three goals and then in the 60th minute the loose-forward broke through before chipping ahead for Connolly to win the race for the ball.

With victory assured It was all change and that restricted Wigan's scoring opportunities.

They have only one game remaining, at home to London next Sunday evening, before the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley but Monie could not have wished for a better run-in to the big game. WIGAN: Radlinsi, Robinson, Moore, Connolly, Bell, Paul, Smith, Mestrov, McCormack, O'Connor, Cassidy, Betts, Farrell. Subs: Gilmour, Holgate, Haughton, Cowie. Att: 12,841.

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