AFTER a couple of tame curtain-raisers it was time for the main event of the first day of the Magic Weekend as Wire and Wigan took to the field.

Neither team has been at their best yet this year and the match was lacking in quality but the intensity of the rivalry was there for all to see.

Wigan took the lead when a handling move to their left close to the try line was too quick for Wire’s defence to handle, resulting in an overlap and an easy run-in try for Liam Marshall.

Not long after that Chris Hill attacked the Wigan line and with four Wigan defenders trying to stop him at least one of them ripped the ball out and it should be noted that an excellent advantage was played by the referee, allowing Daryl Clark to score the equalising try.

Wire did have plenty of possession in the Wigan half and it looked like part of the game plan at least was to keep attacking the left side of Wigan’s defence.

Unfortunately virtually every time Wire went down that side they produced a handling error, their timing seemed to be off and passes weren’t finding their target.

Wigan’s next try came from one such Wire attack, Marshall getting his second try via an interception followed by running virtually the full length of the field.

The 12-6 half time deficit quickly became 18-6, Marshall completing his hat-trick when he was a little fortunate to be able to regather his own little kick.

Wire never looked completely out of it and they narrowed the deficit when Stefan Ratchford scored one of the best tries of the weekend, running on to Kevin Brown’s deft chip kick and then evading the attention of a few Wigan defenders during his 30-metre run to the line.

Despite the missed conversion the momentum had swung and Wire got within two when Tom Lineham squeezed over in the left corner.

Sean O’loughlin nearly beheaded Brown and Wire got a penalty that allowed them to level the scores going into the last 15 minutes.

A short time later Wigan got their own penalty that put them back in front.

Wire stayed positive though and with around six minutes to go they earned their first lead of the match when moving the ball right finally paid dividends as Jack Hughes dummied and stepped his way over.

With a couple of minutes to go Wire were unlucky to lose possession when Wigan had a drop out when Wire should have had a scrum, then a dubious knock-on decision allowed Wigan to get possession.

It was a possession they took ultimate advantage of, with Joe Burgess jumping to catch O’loughlin’s high cross field kick to score the equalising try in the corner.

Fortunately for Wire the conversion was missed and what could have been a heart-breaking defeat became merely a disappointing draw.

Wire’s defence still looks pretty good, three of the four tries they conceded were an interception, an unfortunate ricochet and a perfectly placed high cross-field kick.

Attack wise they are at least as good as any team at gaining yardage but still the most glaring need for improvement is in passing and catching the ball.

At least now they are showing willingness to throw the ball around, which gives them chance to create more tries.

The timing of the runners on to the ball needs to be better but most importantly the passing accuracy from everyone needs to improve, the accuracy of every pass is vital as it makes the next pass so much easier.

If they can start hitting their targets with passes they can continue to make progress up the league.