Wigan breeze past Salford

Tomkins: Four-try haul for Wigan's flying full-back

Sam Tomkins scored four tries as leaders Wigan hammered Salford 52-18 to maintain pole position in the Engage Super League.

However, some of the shine was taken off Wigan's tenth straight victory in all competitions by prop Ben Cross picking up a suspected broken arm which will rule him out for the rest of the season.

Any notion of the Warriors possibly having one eye on the upcoming Carnegie Challenge Cup final were quickly dispelled as they led 28-6 at the break, and they pushed home their advantage in the second half.

Danny Williams grabbed two tries for Salford and was denied a third only by a superb last-ditch tackle by Tomkins.

But it was all about Wigan with Andy Coley, Josh Charnley, Mike McIlorum, Liam Farrell and Joel Tomkins also touching down.

Opener

Man-of-the-moment Sam Tomkins crossed for the opening try with only four minutes gone, although Salford hit back to take the lead eight minutes later through Williams.

A super touchline conversion from skipper Daniel Holdsworth edged the visitors in front at 6-4, although their advantage proved to be short lived.

Sean O'Loughlin and Brett Finch were the architects for Wigan's response, with clever handling resulting in former Salford prop Coley going over under the posts.

The kick from Pat Richards was a formality, and the reigning Man of Steel made no mistake with his next attempt after Joel Tomkins put Charnley over.

Salford were indebted to Luke Patten for keeping them in the game on the half-hour mark, the full-back cleaning up expertly on his own line with Sam Tomkins sniffing around.

However, Patten was unable to prevent Tomkins completing his hat-trick with two more tries in the space of four minutes just before the interval.

Big ask

Any chance of a Salford comeback was extinguished within ten minutes of the restart, with McIlorum and Farrell both going over for converted tries.

But the visitors stuck to their task and were rewarded when Sean Gleeson crossed in the far corner to reduce the arrears to 40-12.

They almost scored again on the hour mark when Williams went flying down the wing, forcing Sam Tomkins to come across and tackle him into touch a yard short of the line.

Joel Tomkins got in on the act with 11 minutes remaining and Harrison Hansen thought he had brought up the 50-point mark for Wigan, only to fail to ground the ball properly.

With Wigan still complaining, Salford went up the other end for Williams to grab his second try, with Holdsworth again goaling from out wide to make it 46-18.

However, fittingly Sam Tomkins had the final word when he glided past three or four would-be tacklers to score in the right-hand corner.