Wigan Warriors v Leeds Rhinos – Pre-season trip will provide valuable test says Richard Agar

Rhinos have chosen tough opposition for their final full-scale hit out ahead of the Super League opener at home to Hull on Sunday, February 2.

Wigan’s side includes new signings Jackson Hastings, George Burgess, Mitch Clark and Jake Bibby.

Rhinos boss Richard Agar has also named a strong squad, with Luke Gale set to feature after recovering from a quad strain and teenage prop Thomas Holroyd in contention for the first time in pre-season.

Rhinos have beaten a makeshift Wakefield Trinity side and second tier Bradford Bulls, but Agar stressed: “We will be coming up against stronger opposition than we’ve faced in our two previous trial games and we’re looking forward to it.

“It will be a good test of where we are at and at the same time it will be good to take part in Liam Farrell’s testimonial game.”

Rhinos have not won at Wigan in any competition since 2013 so victory tomorrow would send out a message ahead of the league campaign, but Agar is more focused on seeing a good performance, individually and as a team.

“I’m not worried about the result – I couldn’t tell you the score from last weekend,” he said.

“I don’t know too many teams who, come the end of the season, are looking at pre-season trial results and thinking that was a catalyst for what happened during the year.

“It is more about performance and gauging ourselves against top-quality opposition.

“Most years you think anyone who finishes above Wigan is generally doing all right.

“They have been a consistent, high-achieving team for a long time and we want to test ourselves against a really good team.

“The result’s really not important, what we want to get out of the performance is knowing what we’ve done well and we will get an opportunity to fix up things that will get highlighted in the game.”

Agar revealed some places in his squad to face Hull are still up for grabs.

From this year coaches will be required to name a 21-man squad two days before a league or cup fixture, with that being reduced to 17 on the day.

Teams will be deducted an interchange, from the eight allowed, for anyone brought into the matchday line-up from outside the 21.

“I reckon we’ve got 19-20 that are fighting for spots,” Agar said.

“There’s a couple of injury situations we’ll need to roll through and obviously a tough game at Wigan we need to get through, but I think we are going quite nicely.

“The performance this weekend might decide those last two or three spots – and obviously we will have a look at Hull and see what we need to do to combat some of their strength.”

Rhinos have three more trial games after this weekend, away to Featherstone Rovers next Friday, Newcastle Thunder two days later and Hunslet on Friday, January 31.

“For Wigan we are going with players who are in contention for round one,” Agar confirmed.

“Featherstone will be a younger, more inexperienced team and anybody we feel needs top-ups or more footy before we get to round one.”

Leeds’ academy players are likely to get an opportunity against Newcastle and Hunslet.

Holroyd has also been named in Featherstone’s squad for their game at Hull KR tomorrow, along with Leeds’ Jack Broadbent, Jarrod O’Connor, Luke Briscoe and Muizz Mustapha.

Wigan Warriors: from Hardaker, Marshall, Hankinson, J Burgess, French, Leuluai, Clubb, Powell, G Burgess, Isa, Farrell, O’Loughlin, Flower, Greenwood, Smithies, Partington, Bullock, Byrne, Manfredi, Clark, Bibby, Wells, Hastings.

Leeds Rhinos: from Walker Newman, Hurrell, Handley, Lui, Gale, Seumanufagai, Prior, Mellor, Martin, Ward, Dwyer, L Sutcliffe, Myler, Cuthbertson, Oledzki, Evans, Smith, McLelland, Donaldson, Holroyd.

Referee: Marcus Griffiths (Widnes).

Kick-off: Tomorrow, 3pm.