Michael Dobson: Keeping rising star Tomkins quiet will be key to our final ambitions

WHEN I was at Wigan in 2006, I heard a couple of whispers about this star of the future they had playing in their Academy team.

Sam Tomkins has certainly come through and proved them all right.

If we are going to beat them tonight, we have got to limit what he can do to us.

He is a great player and his speed off the mark is electric.

He will be a handful but if we can keep him in check it will go a long way to stopping the Warriors and putting us a step closer to Old Trafford.

At Craven Park last month, Tomkins showed us in the first 10 minutes of the game what he could do and he did the same against Leeds last week but then the Rhinos kept him pretty quiet.

We are all pretty relaxed heading into the game. We stayed in a hotel ahead of the game, something we often do for a Friday fixture.

If we are coming this far across the M62 from Hull, we do not want to be getting stuck in that traffic.

It is good to get to the ground early and relax. We saw what can happen when our bus broke down on the way to St Helens earlier this year.

That disrupted our preparation – a couple of our partners picked some of us up in cars and the rest got on a supporters' bus to Knowsley Road – and it showed in the final scoreline when we suffered a heavy defeat.

Thankfully, we will not need to do any of that tonight and we are ready for this match.

Last week against Hull was probably our best performance of the season but we know we have got to back it up.

We have eased off in training a little to make sure we are right physically for Wigan.

We were in such a good position against the Warriors last month when we had chances to go on and beat them at Craven Park.

We did not execute our gameplan quite right, though, and paid the price but we know we can sort that out at the DW Stadium, a place I enjoy going back to.

It is a great atmosphere and a great stadium to play in. When I joined in '06, there was a fear Wigan might get relegated but they only lost four of the 14 games after I signed and they stayed up.

They are obviously a massive club and there was no reason why they couldn't go from that – near disaster – to now where they are as minor premiers.

They have always had the potential with the huge backing they get and they now have got a coach who has brought the best out of them, too.

It has paid dividends with them finishing top of the league but it is a different story now we're all in the play-offs; Wigan are just 80 minutes from being out.

They lost against Leeds last week and that could definitely help us if we can be right in the match after 60 minutes.

In that situation, I believe it will be tougher for them and they will have more pressure to deal with as everyone is expecting the Warriors to be Grand Finalists.

If we can increase that intensity we stand a great chance of progressing ourselves and we're looking forward to being able to do that.

Interview by Dave Craven..