The Warriors crossed the whitewash 18 times as they kicked off their defence of the Challenge Cup with a 98-4 win over the Championship One side at the DW Stadium.

And Tomkins was in fantastic form breaking his own personal try record of five tries in one match and leading Griffiths to label him 'untouchable'.

"Thank goodness he wasn't around when I played," exclaimed Griffiths, who said the 23-year-old reminds him of Wales, Widnes and Warrington legend Jonathan Davies in his pomp.

"I think he is one of the best players in the world, they talk about Billy Slater but this guy is equally as good as him.

"I have been fortunate to coach a number of world-class players in my time and he had shades of Davies today. He was untouchable really."

Upset

The proud Welshman was happy with the way his team battled for the whole 80 minutes as he knew there was never an upset on the cards.

He added: "It was to be expected to be fair. We have only been together 14 weeks. Wigan are one of the best rugby league teams in the world.

"Let's get it into perspective I have had these boys in for three hours this week for preparation and Wigan did that on Monday morning.

"The gulf was there for everyone to see but we can take a hell of a lot out of that game today. The players will grow from that from their own experience of playing at this level."

Wigan assistant coach Iestyn Harris paid tribute to his former club for never giving in and was quite pleased his new team did not hit three figures.

Harris, who is the Wales national coach, was in charge of the Crusaders in Super League in 2011 before financial difficulties forced them to withdraw from the competition.

Fantastic

The club has since been resurrected as a Championship One side under the new name North Wales Crusaders and Harris is happy with the progress they are making.

He said: "Sometimes games like these are difficult mentally when you play a team from a couple of divisions below you but I thought we were really efficient and really professional in the way we performed.

"Some of the tries we scored were fantastic. I thought Sam Tomkins was amazing with some of the skill he showed out there today.

"But you have to give some credit to the Crusaders as well the way they dug in and stuck in. It threatened at one stage that they would completely fall away but they stuck with it and they are only a young side and there is a lot of respect from us for that.

"We didn't over-emphasise on that (reaching 100 points), Josh (Charnley) missed the goal and he is a bit gutted in the changing room, but the Crusaders probably did not deserve that anyway with the way they stuck in.

"You can see they have got some young players who have not played the game for too long and for them to have conceded 100 points would have been unfair on them."