Wigan Warriors held off a tremendous fightback from the Catalans Dragons to secure a precious 24-22 victory that consolidates their place in the top eight and virtually ends the Dragons’ hopes of a place in the engage Super League play-offs.

Man of the match Pat Richards contributed two of the Warriors’ five tries but the clinching score came from centre Darrell Goulding, who celebrated his return to the club in style with the winner eight minutes from the end.

The Dragons had twice come from behind to take the lead and were 22-14 ahead when winger Dimitri Pelo scored a wonder try on the hour but Wigan took advantage of a tiring defence to touch down twice in the last 15 minutes.

The Dragons were hit by adversity before kick-off when stand-off Adam Mogg was a late withdrawal, forcing Greg Bird into the starting line-up just hours after stepping off the plane from Australia.

Wigan, led for the first time by Phil Bailey in the absence of regular captain Sean O’Loughlin, showed their danger after four minutes when Richards had a try disallowed for a forward pass.

A succession of penalties, two conceded by David Ferriol for high tackles and another by Jason Ryles for a flop, enabled the home side to build pressure and it paid off on 22 minutes with the game’s first try.

Full-back Cameron Phelps got the ball out of a two-man tackle to Thomas Leuluai and he got the supporting George Carmont crashing over.

The visitors never got the chance to recover from the blow with Wigan quickly adding a second score.

Full-back Clint Greenshields was penalised for disputing referee Ben Thaler’s decision to award a knock-on, claiming that the ball struck his arm, and he was still seething when Richards took Leuluai’s long pass to cross for his side’s second try moments later.

Richards kicked his first conversion to make it 10-0 and Greenshields was sent to the sin bin for continuing his rant.

It could have gone disastrously wrong for the French side at that stage but the adversity merely served to inspire them and they took the lead with two tries in five minutes just before the break.

Bell crossed at the right corner after good work from Jason Croker and then Pelo’s burst on the other flank got second rower Olivier Elima over.

In between the tries, Wigan were reduced to 12 men when Leuluai was sin-binned for showing dissent to a touchjudge and the Catalans had the man advantage when they scored their second touchdown.

Thomas Bosc demonstrated his unerring accuracy with the boot by landing both conversions from wide to edge his side into a 12-10 lead.

Wigan were quickly back on the offensive in the second half and they were back in front within seven minutes of the resumption when neat handling by Goulding - back in the side following his recall from Salford City Reds - got winger Amos Roberts over for a third try.

Richards was once more off target with the goalkick and the misses began to look costly when Catalans hit back with their third try almost straight away.

Bird won the race to Bosc’s cleverly-judged grubber kick and the scrum half kicked his third goal to put his side 18-14 ahead.

Wigan could sense it was not going to be their day when an unmarked Richards collected Leuluai’s kick to the corner but dropped the ball diving over the line.

The Catalans demonstrated far superior finishing on the hour when centre Jean-Philippe Baile wriggled free from his would-be tacklers and Pelo produced a wonderful pick-up to score.

Bosc lost his 100% record with the boot and the Dragons’ lead was cut to just two points on 65 minutes when Wigan once more exposed a shortage of numbers on their opponents’ right with Phelps getting Richards over for his second converted try.

There were clear signs of fatigue setting in among the visitors’ ranks and Wigan took full advantage when Phelps produced another superbly-timed pass to get Goulding over for the winner.