The rugby community lost a legend last week as Ronnie Dutch sadly passed away on Thursday. It was fitting that two borough sides came together to play a hard fought local derby in front of a huge crowd and as the predicted thunderstorms failed to appear it was as if the heavens themselves were shining down on a glorious yet poignant day.

With the game underway it seemed as if the Wigan players had an extra spring in their step and were keen to redress the balance after losing at St John Rigby earlier in the season. And so it was Jack Dugdale who opened the scoring for the Douglas Valley side. Wigan awarded a scrum just 5 metres out, decided to go blind through the talented Killian Wallace. Wallace drew two tackles before deftly offloading to Dugdale who stretched over in the corner. The difficult conversion was missed.

The first half was a battle of attrition with neither side able to break free of the defensive shackles and the only other score before the half was an Orrell penalty 2 minutes before the break. 5-3 Half time.

Orrell found renewed vigour after the break and within a minute of the restart they found space in the middle of the park with a neat step rounding off a move to take them over close to the posts. The conversion gave Orrell a 5-10 lead.

Wigan regrouped and were able to hit back soon afterwards. Sam Gee made a fine break into opposition territory before shipping a reverse pass out of the back of his hand to Connor Matthews. Matthews looked destined to score under the posts but resilient defenders managed to haul him down just short. Adam Dwyer was first to react, picking the ball up from the base of the ruck and diving over for the score. Gee added the conversion.

Wigan piled on the pressure and an error lead to an attacking scrum on the edge of the Orrell 22 yard line. Flanker, Sione Afu, took the ball from the back of the scrum and charged through the flailing defence to take the ball over. Gee added the conversion.

More pressure lead to another Wigan penalty which was cleared long and into touch. From the resulting lineout the Wigan pack drove towards the line. With the defence holding strong Wigan shipped out to Sam Gee to take on the crash ball. Killian Wallace recycled the ball before stepping the defence and going over for Wigan’s 4th try of the match and guaranteeing a bonus point.

With just 8 minutes remaining there was a small glimmer of hope for the away side as Orrell went over for a try of their own to take the score to 26-15.

With time ticking away, Wigan were awarded another penalty, this time opting to kick for goal through Sam Gee. The resulting 3 points taking the score to 29-15 and dashing any hopes of an Orrell come back.