Leigh Leopards owner Derek Beaumont has likened Wigan Warriors to a ‘snake killing its prey’ after their Grand Final win on Saturday evening.
The Leopards enjoyed a fine second half of the Super League season and set up a semi-final clash Wigan Warriors earlier this month. However, their hopes of reaching the Grand Final were ended in emphatic fashion as Wigan recorded a 38-0 victory over the Leopards.
That was the fourth time Leigh had lost against Wigan last season and Beaumont has opened up on what he believes makes Wigan so good.
Speaking to Super League Raw, Beaumont said, with reference to his side’s play-off defeat: “I think if you analyse what’s so good about Wigan, you take their best player out and the next best in ain’t far from it. The difference between the best performance and the worst performance, there ain’t that much between it.”
He continued: “The strength and the depth and the quality that they’ve got all the way through is absolutely massive and they can just grind teams out. I likened it to a snake killing its prey. I’ve watched it happen. It’s boring.
“You sit there and it just doesn’t move. It just squeezes the life out of something and sticks to its process and knows that in the end that will achieve what it wants to do.
“What Wigan have got for me is on top of that, they’ve got the X-factor. In Bevan French in particular, he can just turn it on a sixpence.
“That game against us, he runs into a dead end, he’s looking around wondering what to do. I’m telling you, nine out of 10 half-backs are just going down and think let’s reset.
“He just thinks ‘I’ll do it myself then’, and dives in and gives you a superman and a laugh at you, that’s the big difference and that’s what we’ve got to try and match up. I think Chez (Chris Chester) has done a good job on recruiting this year and it will give us a better chance once we blend that squad.”