Champs make their point

Wigan recovered from a 22-4 deficit with just 15 minutes remaining to grab a thrilling draw against Leeds at Headingley.

The Rhinos were cruising after dominating for an hour, but Wigan showed true champion quality to score three tries in the closing stages.

And after Leeds infringed on their own try-line as time expired, Sam Tomkins held his nerve to knock over a tricky penalty and salvage an unlikely point for the Warriors.

The Rhinos should have had the win wrapped up long before Wigan's late heroics, despite falling behind to an early Joel Tomkins try.

The visitors had the better of an opening 10 minutes which were punctuated by seven penalties, with Thomas Leuluai making two clean breaks, the second of which was finished off well by the elder Tomkins.

But after George Carmont's loose pass was intercepted by Kevin Sinfield and Jamie Jones-Buchanan went in from close range, it was all Leeds.

They stretched their lead to 12-4 on 20 minutes as Ryan Hall's clever grubber was hacked on by Danny Buderus before the hooker touched down, with Sinfield knocking over his second conversion.

Leeds could have wrapped up the game before the break, but they had three tries rightly chalked off for close forward pass calls, while the video ref ruled out a Sinfield score for offside, somewhat more contentiously.

Survived

Wigan survived to the break but quickly gave away two penalties, which Sinfield turned into four points.

When Sam Tomkins failed to deal with a Sinfield high kick and Webb jinked over, the champions looked set for their second straight defeat.

Even when Sam Tomkins dinked over the top and collected to score an impressive individual try, it looked nothing more than a neat consolation.

But with seven minutes left Sean O'Loughlin's long pass put Darrell Goulding in for a fine finish at the corner and five minutes later Paul Prescott crashed over by the posts.

Sam Tomkins only kicked the easier conversion and the gap was stil two points as the clock ticked down.

But Joel Tomkins made a break from deep and with Leeds scrambling to plug gaps on their line, Wigan were awarded a penalty and Sam Tomkins kept his nerve.