SAINTS may have gone down to their sixth consecutive Good Friday defeat, but their patched up team will have earned plenty of plaudits for the way they battled against the odds.

Already with a lengthy casualty list, after losing Travis Burns and Atelea Vea, Saints suffered the misfortune of losing stand-in scrum half Jon Wilkin with a hamstring injury during yesterday’s captain’s run.

It meant another last minute half back combination with Jordan Turner teaming up with Lance Hohaia.

If injuries meant Saints were going to be up against it, they gave themselves a further handicap within the opening minute when Turner’s kick was charged down, bouncing favourably into the grateful arms of Wigan wing Dom Manfredi.

Matty Smith slotted the conversion, but at 6-0 it became something resembling a brutal, human chess match with the teams matching each other set for set.

Saints earned a crack at the line after Hohaia’s chip into the goal line forced a drop out.

And they came up with the goods midway through the first half when Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook drove in from close range.

Tommy Makinson missed the conversion, but the score gave Saints a tonic to keep on hanging in there.

In arguably their biggest physical challenge to date, Saints’ big men Mose Masoe, Alex Walmsley and Kyle Amor locked horns with Lee Mossop, Tony Clubb and Ryan Sutton in some bruising midfield exchanges.

On a boggy pitch, and the referee keen to let the game flow in a manner of speaking, those forwards battled for feet and inches with every tackle of every set.

Although neither side created much with the ball, that did not make it any less of a spectacle.

With such a slender lead, and with defences so fired up, it was always going to be a case of hunt the mistake.

Any hope that Saints could hang in a wear the opposition down diminished after they lost Joe Greenwood with an ankle injury midway through the first half and then Paul Wellens gingerly walked off five minutes into the second.

It was a sign of their strength of character that they continued to repel Wigan attacks, match them in the middle and keep the game on a knife edge.

The turning point came entering the last ten minutes, when an old school ‘mad dog’ tackling set kept Saints’ forwards pinned inside their own 20.

And with fatigue fogging the brain, Greg Richards was sent charging into the teeth of the Wigan defence on the last tackle to give the Warriors an easy turnover.

Moments later, and not without some luck, the game was put to bed when George Williams’ sliced kick sat up kindly on the gluepot part of the in-goal long enough for Joe Burgess to pounce.

Ryan Hampshire slotted the goal and that meant, despite an 80 minute toil, Saints came away with nothing.

But what a game – one that showed that you do not need scorelines of 32-26 to keep fans on the edges of their seats.