Watch Wigan Warriors and Warrington Wolves get the 2020 Super League season underway on Thursday, live on Sky Sports Arena and Sky Sports Mix from 7.30pm
Thursday 30 January 2020 18:54, UK
We take a look at some of the talking points as Wigan Warriors and Warrington Wolves prepare to kick off the new Super League season, live on Sky Sports...
Since at least the first season of the Northern Union, when the Cherry and Whites won 9-0 at home on November 2, 1895, Wigan and Warrington have been settling their differences on the rugby field.
Now, in the year which sees rugby league celebrate 125 years since that historic breakaway from the Rugby Football Union, the two old rivals - now with Warriors and Wolves long since added as their nicknames - kick off the new Super League campaign on Thursday evening.
For new Warriors signings Jackson Hastings, George Burgess and Jake Bibby, the derby at the DW Stadium will be their first experience of a Wigan-Warrington showdown, which history shows have often proved to be spicy affairs.
Two of the Wolves' newcomers, Gareth Widdop and last-minute recruit Leilani Latu, are not involved - in Widdop's case, due to having suffered an injury in pre-season training.
However, Anthony Gelling is set to start after choosing to sign for Warrington over a possible return to former club Wigan and the centre knows his new side need to hit the ground running with just one pre-season game against Salford Red Devils under their belt.
"I was hoping for a few more warm-up games, so we're going into it a bit cold and I would have liked to have hit our stride a bit," Gelling told Sky Sports.
"But it is what it is, we'll play them first game and probably four or five times the way the competition is set up."
Bevan French showed plenty of glimpses of what he is capable of in his eight appearances in a Wigan shirt last year after making the mid-season switch from NRL side Parramatta Eels.
Five of those games saw him feature off the interchange bench, but the 24-year-old still contributed six tries and earned two man-of-the-match gongs.
Now, Warriors head coach Adrian Lam is set to hand him the full-back berth for the showdown against Warrington, with Zak Hardaker switching to centre in place of the injured Oliver Gildart.
It is a mouth-watering prospect for Wigan fans and French has certainly made new team-mate Bibby sit up and take notice during pre-season.
"Just from training, I think he's probably the best full-back I've ever seen," Bibby told Wigan Today.
"Honestly, in training, his stop-start, his skills, it's ridiculous. Some of the things he can do are outrageous."
Warrington are set to feature a different face at full-back for the clash as well, with Matty Ashton in line to make his Super League debut.
The former Swinton Lions player, who scored 30 tries in 25 appearances for the Championship club last year, has been impressing Wolves head coach Steve Price during pre-season training.
The aforementioned injury suffered by Widdop meant Stefan Ratchford lined up in the halves with Blake Austin for the 26-10 victory over Salford in Mike Cooper's testimonial, opening the door for Ashton to slot in at full-back.
Price's 21-man squad selection suggests that is likely to be how Warrington will start at the DW Stadium on Thursday and he has been full of praise for the 2019 Championship young player of the year.
"We didn't anticipate Gaz going down so early, but these things happen in our game and we had to go with plan B," Price said at last week's season launch.
"Matty Ashton has been great through pre-season and he's been one of our top three performers in all our metrics.
"He put in a solid performance against Salford and I've been really pleased with the spine of our team there."
Wigan's already formidable set of forwards received a boost over the winter with the arrival of England prop Burgess from South Sydney Rabbitohs and Castleford Tigers front row Mitch Clark, who is not in the 21-man squad for Thursday.
They join a pack which includes the experience of Liam Farrell, Sean O'Loughlin and Tony Clubb, the explosive Joe Bullock and up-and-coming home-grown talent like Ethan Havard and Morgan Smithies.
Whoever Lam selects in among his starting forwards and on the interchange bench will provide a stern test for Warrington's front six and new recruit Burgess believes that depth is benefiting all of them.
"We've got good depth in our squad and it's what you need heading into a long season like Super League," Burgess told Sky Sports.
"We're all pretty excited about it and it's good for pre-season because you get a lot of competition.
"Everyone is pushing themselves to their limits, which is what we want and what we need as a squad."
Watch Wigan Warriors vs Warrington Wolves live on Sky Sports Arena from 7.30pm on Thursday.
