Wounded Wigan win

Stuart Raper raised two fingers to the Wigan supporters on Friday night. But there was no tension between the delighted fans - in a much-improved JJB Stadium gate in excess of 13,000 - and their Australian coach after the 41-18 dismissal of Leeds. Raper was merely indicating the number of wins Wigan now need to add the Tetley's Super League title to the Challenge Cup they collected at Murrayfield in April.

But it would be close to a sporting miracle if Raper's team even reach a third consecutive grand final now. They are simply running out of bodies, suffering another three serious injuries in the second half against Leeds after starting the match missing a whole three-quarter line.

Of that quartet - Brett Dal las, Jamie Ainscough, Paul Johnson and Brian Carney - only Carney has any chance of playing in the final eliminator next Friday night.

Remarkably, Terry Newton, Wigan's Great Britain hooker, expects to play despite suffering a dislocated elbow on Friday - 'It'll be reet in the morning,' he told a local radio reporter outside the dressing rooms.

But Julian O'Neill, a solid presence at stand-off, must be a major doubt after limping off with a knee problem, and just as worrying are the injuries being carried by several of the forwards. Terry O'Connor has not been able to train for weeks because of a foot injury, and needed a couple of pain-killing sprays to get through Friday's game, while Mick Cassidy offered a further example of his well-established toughness by battling on despite several heavy knocks to the head.

'We can't have any whingeing about bumps or bruises,' joked a less than sympathetic Raper. 'They've got to be legitimate breaks to have any chance of not playing. We've got to tape these blokes together - nail them together if we have to. And one thing I know with what they've shown over the course of the year is that they'll put their bodies on the line.'

The probability must be that Friday's will be a match too far for Wigan, just as the final eliminator was for a similarly injury-ravaged St Helens this time last year - when they suffered a heavy defeat at Wigan, who went on to be humbled by Bradford in the grand final. But whatever happens, Raper and Wigan can reflect on a successful season.

For Leeds, though, it has been another year of under-achievement - as their coach Daryl Powell admitted. 'We got to the Challenge Cup semi-final and didn't perform and we got to another semi-final in this and again didn't perform,' he said. 'We've had opportunities to get to a final twice in the season and haven't been good enough to do it.'

The Leeds chief executive and football manager Gary Hetherington had demanded a major improvement from the players in the closing weeks of the season, warning of major changes otherwise. Tonie Carroll, the New Zealand centre who returned from his knee injury at Wigan but will now head back to Queensland to rejoin the Brisbane Broncos, is surely not the only member of Friday's team who has played his last game for the Rhinos - with even Hetherington's famously close relationship with Powell, who was his first signing when he founded Sheffield Eagles back in 1983, now the subject of growing speculation.