Leigh Leopards vs Wigan Warriors Prediction: Field to inspire the champions

Leigh host Wigan in the battle of the borough on Friday (20:00, live on Sky Sports Action) and they must sense an opportunity against a Warriors side that has looked a little off-colour in recent weeks.

Our rugby league guru George Riley shares his Leigh Leopards vs Wigan Warriors prediction, complete with the latest odds per Super League title sponsors Betfred and team news.

Leigh Leopards vs Wigan Warriors Odds

Wigan are 4/11 to come away from Leigh Sports Village with two points, while the hosts are 23/10. It's 18/1 about the draw.

The Warriors' Jai Field and Liam Marshall head the tryscorer markets, at 8/1 to score the opener and 4/5 for anytime.

Team News

Leigh's main concern is the fitness of their star full-back David Armstrong who was injured in defeat at AMT Headingley last week.

Armstrong is named in the initial 21-man squad but he must be a huge doubt to actually play given he was unable to move in Leeds. Winger Darnell McIntosh slotted in at full-back when Armstrong was injured, but he picked up an injury himself and misses out.

And another setback sees the absence of prop Robbie Mulhern, who did meet up with his England team-mates at a team bonding session on Tuesday in Manchester.

Alec Tuitavake is back from suspension and AJ Towse and Andrew Badrock return from loans at Widnes.

The big bit of Wigan team news is the inclusion of Abbas Miski, with the winger having missed the last two months following knee surgery. Fellow winger Liam Marshall remains a doubt, while youngster Jacob Douglas drops out to accommodate Miski.

Harvie Hill serves the last game of his suspension, while Harvey Makin is included.

#PickYourPunt - Wigan -2.5 & Jai Field to score a try @ 29/20

This is probably the last fixture that Wigan would want given their dip in form of late. The champions have not looked like champions in a win at Huddersfield that should really have been a defeat but for a dramatic late winner, a loss at Wakefield and then last week's controversial late win at Castleford.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Wigan could have lost all three of these games. So Leigh will fancy this - and the Leopards have been scoring points. Even in defeat at Leeds Adrian Lam's men put 30 points past one of the best defences in the league, and they won their other two games in June.

So this could be tight, my main worry is key injuries to Leopards players that could leave them a little light.

This is the third Super League meeting between the sides already this year, with Leigh famously winning the season-opener 1-0 and Wigan winning 36-28 last month.

Despite their poor form, I have Wigan grabbing a confidence-boosting derby win here too, but not by much. And once again their talisman Jai Field could be the difference.

He's undoubtedly Wigan's top man, and the player at the top of the Betfred Super League try scorer charts. I am running out of new things to say about the Warriors' flying full-back given we have been backing him all season in the anytime try scorer market.

He has still managed to score in the last three games that have seen Wigan scrape barely-deserved wins at Castleford and Huddersfield and lose to Wakefield in between.

In fact Field's scoring run goes back way further than that - he has run in 13 tries in 11 games since his return from injury.

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