Wigan star Bevan French admits he doesn’t even have to work on his dynamic partnership with Jai Field - and it could get even better.
Electric Aussie winger French finished off as Betfred Super League’s top scorer last term with 31 tries. Many of them came down to his fellow countryman Jai Field, the dazzling full-back whose silky skills ripped so many opponents to shreds. French is 5/1 favourite to top the charts again with Warriors getting their new campaign underway at Hull KR on Saturday week.
And he concedes he’s never had a more polished, exhilarating link with a team-mate. Ex-Parramatta ace French, 27, said: “I have had a lot of good partnerships with people on the field. But I think ours comes without really much practice, to be honest.
“We don’t really go for set-ups or talk about it or plan for it. It’s just the background we have, both playing touch rugby and we’re sort of on the same wavelength. It’s not something we practice a lot. It’s cool to have that with somebody; you don’t have to talk about things but just be in that moment and react to each other.”
Field weighed in with 20 tries himself plus 24 assists while French contributed 16 assists. Wigan fans, then, were delighted when French ended months of speculation about an NRL return by signing a new two-year deal with the Challenge Cup holders in September. After finishing second and disappointingly losing to Leeds in their Super League semi-final, he now hopes to help finally wrestle the title away from four-peat champions St Helens.
But French, who scored a Super League record seven tries in one game against Hull last year, insisted: “We’ve not looked too far into it. We’re looking at getting better. We have to have that confidence. And we know we’ll go out and compete every year but we haven’t spoken too much about the outcome at the end of the year.
“It’s purely focused on week by week. Trying to improve each week and trying to get better. There’s two new centres now - Toby King on my side and Jake Wardle - and a couple of young boys pushing for spots as well.
"We’re excited for the start. Jai is flying. We have a good backfield and hopefully with the two new centres we can build those combinations further.”
On his new deal, he conceded: “It’s good to have all that out of the way. It’s good now to solely focus on footy. I know it was a big talking point at the back end of the year but at the same time I’m not one to let all that outside noise affect me. It wasn’t too much of a distraction.”
