Monday 24 February 2020 10:34, UK
Wigan head coach Adrian Lam was delighted that Dom Manfredi managed to get through the full 80 minutes on his latest long-awaited return from injury.
Manfredi, who scored two tries in Wigan's Grand Final win in 2018, has been out of action since picking up a serious knee injury against Castleford back in July.
The 26-year-old has had a tough time with injuries with three serious knee problems in the past four years, but he marked his return with a try as Wigan beat Hull FC 26-12.
"We just sung in the dressing room for him," said Lam. "He's respected highly by his peers, like no other player at the club I have noticed.
"They love him. We wanted to pick him last week, but he wasn't quite mentally right in himself. He wanted to play a reserve game, which we allowed him to do.
"I think that will do his confidence the world of good. His carries are some of the strongest, not only in Super League but in the world. It's only going to be beneficial for us."
Lam revealed George Burgess is very close to returning from the niggling injury that saw him limp off in the first half against Warrington and if he does not feature against Huddersfield on Sunday, then he will be ready for Hull KR on March 8.
"George is really close to returning. It will be next week or the week after," said Lam. "We just have to monitor him and ensure he gets a full week of training and then he will fit into that group somewhere."
Hull coach Lee Radford failed to hide his disappointment after seeing his side crash to a second consecutive Super League defeat.
The Black and Whites conceded 16 second-half points and Radford is unhappy at the way they are attacking as well.
"The second half they came out and did a tidy job on us," he said. "We made some costly errors and they slowly ground us down. It looks painful some of the plays we are running.
"You have got to break the opposition's momentum with some special efforts and we probably didn't see enough of them. We needed a bit more from everybody, we just slowly got ground down with a team that had a lot of possession.
"They didn't do anything spectacular but did their jobs really well.
"I don't think anyone was outstanding today. Josh Griffin was head and shoulders our best player I thought. But there were a lot of okay performances around that."
