Kear delighted by win over Wigan

The Wildcats shrugged off the absence of eight first-choice players to get their engage Super League campaign off to a spectacular start at the JJB Stadium.

"It ranks very high indeed because everybody could see we were behind the black ball from the start with only 17 fit men," said Kear. "But it's not who's fit, it's how you play as a collective unit and, as a collective unit, we were magnificent."

He added: "It's a very special win. Wigan are a very good rugby league team and I've no doubt there won't be many teams who come here and go away with the points. They are two bonus points for us."

The 100-1 title outsiders are dedicating the 2009 season to Adam Watene, their popular former player who collapsed and died of a heart attack in October, and he was the inspiration behind their success.

Their heroic efforts were typified by skipper Jason Demetriou, wearing the number eight of the Cook Island international, who defied a wrist injury to lead his team superbly.

"In Jason's last words before we went out onto the pitch, he said Adam would have wanted us to play for 80 minutes with passion and purpose and perhaps that summed up the performance," said Kear.

"Jason took a knock and didn't want to come off. He let me know in no uncertain terms at half-time that he wanted to go back on. He has a big presence and showed that in his two spells."

Wigan were a big disappointment with Australians Mark Riddell and Amos Roberts failing to impress on their Super League debuts, and they left the field to boos from the 14,377 crowd.

"We didn't help ourselves," said Warriors coach Brian Noble. "We wouldn't have beaten Dewsbury Celtic with a 40% completion rate. We dropped far too much ball in wintry conditions. We got caught cold at the start, other than that we defended okay but we allowed Brad Drew to dictate things around the ruck."