warriors

A Wigan boy, Farrell came from a strong rugby league background, cousin of former Wigan Warriors captain Andy, now head coach of Ireland’s rugby union team.

Coming through the Warriors’ academy system, Farrell was handed his debut as a teenager in April 2010 and by the end of that year, he was appearing in Wigan’s Grand Final success over St Helens at Old Trafford, having also played a few games on loan at Widnes Vikings.

But since then, the forward has only ever played for the Cherry and Whites – a pillar of consistency in the pack.

As well as the team honours, Farrell has been included in the Super League Dream Team on six occasions, while he was also the Harry Sunderland Trophy winner as player of the match in the 2016 Grand Final win over Warrington Wolves.

He was the natural replacement to succeed Thomas Leulaui as Wigan skipper and his quiet steel and authority have been at the forefront of a new glorious era for the club under head coach Matt Peet.

Farrell has won seven of the 11 trophies up for grabs during his time as captain, the most recent being the Challenge Cup at Wembley in May, and he may add two more before he retires as Wigan chase the League Leaders’ Shield and the Grand Final next month.

“You have to make the right call at the right time, and I think I have done that,” he said. “Speaking to people close to me, professionals and the advice I have been given, it’s the right time.

“Playing one game for Wigan was always the goal for me. If I had have done that and never played again I’d have been immensely proud, my family would have been proud and we’d have gone back to being Wigan fans. So to have been able to play over 400 games in this jersey has been nothing short of incredible.”

Wigan Warriors boss Matt Peet told BBC Radio Manchester:

“It was a fitting occasion for Billy with everything the club did and the atmosphere in the ground.

“I thought the performance was befitting.

“The fans and the people in the crowd who’ve had a sad week, we have a responsibility.”

Hull KR head coach Willie Peters told BBC Radio Humberside:

“I’m really proud of the performance. We had a young side tonight and we didn’t stop fighting until the end. We played against a good team, who were extremely disciplined and give you nothing.

“The inexperience we had in this team tonight, the main thing is that we said we need to fight for everything. We gave them a few things but they did the badge proud.

“I’ve always said players have to earn the jersey, it’s not given to them. It was different circumstances tonight and there were probably three players who could have played but they’ve played a lot of rugby league.”

Wigan: Field; Eckersley, Keighran, Wardle, Marshall; French, Smith; Havard, O’Neill, Thompson, McDermott, Partington, Ellis.

Interchanges: Walters, Mago, Kerr, O’Connor.

Hull KR: Broadbent; Horne, Gorman, Booth, Kershaw; Mourgue, Charles; Sue, Leyland, Luckley, Martin, Dearlove, Lawton.

Interchanges: Amone, Fishwick, Murphy, Woods.

Referee: Aaron Moore.

How the table looks could change drastically by the end of the weekend, with Leeds able to reclaim top spot if they beat York Knights on Sunday, while a third successive Trinity loss has them in danger of dropping to fifth on Saturday if defending champions Hull KR beat Toulouse Olympique.

Both sides had early chances to take the lead, but French was the reason that neither of them managed to open the scoring in the first 10 minutes.

First the Australian wasted a golden opportunity to send Zach Eckersley over with a forward pass, but within two minutes he came up with a stunning try-saving intervention at the other end by holding Max Jowitt up over the line before the full-back was controversially judged to lose the ball in his attempt to touchdown.

Eventually, it was French himself who broke the deadlock, pouncing on a stray Wakefield pass inside his own half before sprinting 65 metres untouched to go in near to the posts.

Two tries in five minutes from Marshall out wide put Warriors in a commanding position before the half-hour mark.

Wakefield head coach Daryl Powell called on Emre Guler for the first time soon after that, with the prop coming off the bench just two days after his move from NRL side St George Illawarra Dragons was brought forward by Trinity.

It was only five days ago that Guler, who had been due to make his Super League move next season, had started for the Dragons in their win against Wests Tigers.

Wakefield threatened to respond a number of times before Hall plucked a searching high ball from Jake Trueman from the sky to dot down for the visitors in the 53rd minute.

Hall very nearly linked up with Jowitt for another Wakefield four-pointer soon after, but the centre was forced into touch by Eckersley as he dished the ball off for the finish.

The game’s definitive moment came in the 65th minute when Field swooped on a knock-on from Mike McMeeken, who was within barging distance of the tryline, allowing the full-back to race away in the other direction to score his 15th Super League try of the season.

Wigan Warriors: Field; Eckersley, Keighran, Wardle, Marshall; French, Smith; Havard, O’Neill, Thompson, McDermott, Partington, Ellis.

Interchanges: Mago, Kerr, Cartwright, O’Connor.

Wakefield Trinity: Jowitt; Myers, Scott, Hall, Pratt; Sinfield, Trueman; McMeeken, Lipowicz, Storton, Rodwell, Smoothy, Lolesio.

Interchanges: Hamlin-Uele, Faatili, Smith, Guler.

Referee: Chris Kendall.

The Lakers will open NBA Cup play against the same team they open the season with.

The Lakers start the in-season tournament on Oct. 30 on the road against the Golden State Warriors at 7 p.m. PDT on Prime Video, the NBA announced Wednesday during another stage of the schedule release that will wrap up Thursday. The NBA Cup opener is a second matchup in the first weeks of the season between the Lakers and the Warriors, who begin their regular-season schedules on Oct. 21 at Crypto.com Arena.

The Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings and San Antonio Spurs are also in the Lakers’ five-team Group C. The Lakers have Cup home games against the Trail Blazers (Nov. 6, 7 p.m.) and Kings (Nov. 20, 7 p.m.) and play their last group-stage Cup game at San Antonio at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 27.

With 30 teams split into six groups for the NBA Cup, teams play a round-robin group stage before the top team in each group and the best second-place team in each conference advance to the eight-team quarterfinal stage.

The quarterfinals (Dec. 4 and Dec. 5) and semifinals (Dec. 8 and/or Dec. 9) will be hosted in NBA team markets, a departure from the previous formats that placed only the quarterfinals in team arenas before playing the semifinal and championship in Las Vegas. The championship game, scheduled for Dec. 11, will be played at Butler University’s Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

The in-season tournament, now in its third season, was launched to increase the stakes during a long NBA regular season. It incentivized competition in part by dangling more than $500,000 in prize money for each player on the winning team.

The NBA Cup just produced its first NBA champion, with the New York Knicks becoming the first team to win the regular-season tournament and the NBA title in the same season.