SAINTS' four-game unbeaten run faces a crunch test on Friday night when rejuvenated local rivals Wigan make the short trip to Langtree Park.

It is a match with a lot riding on it, with Saints just a point ahead of of their third-placed neighbours.

Although Saints have their injury concerns, with Tommy Makinson and possibly James Roby added to the now traditional lengthy casualty list, they go into the game in good spirit after chalking up some gutsy wins.

They will need it. After a wobble which saw them exit the Challenge Cup and then suffer a 50 point mauling in France, Wigan have bounced back coinciding with the return to the squad of fit again Liam Farrell and skipper Sean O’Loughlin.

Saints will have it all to do if they are to avenge the Good Friday loss, but Keiron Cunningham’s team will not be over-awed.

Cunningham said: “We are coming into this game off the back of four great victories, so I’d like to think we go in with a lot of confidence.

“They have their full pack back and are back to full strength, with key people back and they are hitting form at the right time.

"They are going to be tough to play against.”

Cunningham is not traditionally a fan of history when it comes to what happens in games, but he does use the experience of past games to explain the underdog can often have their day when it comes to Saints v Wigan clashes.

“Form goes out of the window on derby days,” he said.

“In the past I have played against a bunch of Wigan kids who we should have beaten by 90 points and we lost.

“That is the way derbies go. We have had it our way too when it has been our turn to shock them.”

Aside from local bragging rights, it is effectively an important four pointer which could have a direct bearing on who sits where in the final table before the Super 8 split and at the end of the year.

“Wigan are around us, the goal has been to stay in that top four if we can, there or thereabouts.

“I have not said we want to be league leader or this or that. We are doing a good job with what we have got.

“We had a mini goal that we set ourselves and we are doing well at the minute. It is an important two points because there’s only a point separating us,” Cunningham said.

A big, noisy Langtree Park crowd will provide a fitting cauldron for this clash – one that all the participants and spectators revel in.

It is certainly one that gets people fired up.

“A lot of people get confused and talk about hatred, but for me it is passion for your club.

“There is a really healthy rivalry – a lot of Saints Wigan fans are the best of friends, but they part for the game and then have a pint together afterwards.

“It is same with the coaches, me and Waney are really good friends.

“It is good to have a game of this calibre and have so much passion around it. I used to really love playing in them.

“It was always my favourite fixture of the year, just to play for your home town against Wigan was something else.

“I remember my first one as a kid, a 16-all drawn Challenge Cup game in 1995 at the old Central Park.

“I had been to lots of Saints v Wigan derbies as a junior spectator. I was coming through the ranks and was only 18 when I played against Wigan of old, that great team that won everything, with a front row of Kelvin Skerrett and Neil Cowie.

“Yet we went there and drew and we were all a bit shocked because there were points there where we should have won the game.”

Saints 19-man: Turner, Jones, Swift, Burns, Masoe, Roby, Amor, Wilkin, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Walmsley, Flanagan, Percival, Richards, Dawson, Savelio, Charnock, Ashworth Fleming, McDonnell.