Wigan are rugby league's new world champions after a grinding 22-6 win over Cronulla at DW Stadium on Sunday, the famous club lifting the trophy for the first time since 1994.

The previous evening, Warrington's Kevin Brown said that game 23 years ago had inspired him to take up the sport, after he was man of the match in a 27-18 win over Brisbane.

Super League's Roger Draper had told Fairfax he had hoped to lock in the 2018 series over the next fortnight; four NRL teams had refused to take part before Brisbane accepted and it was scaled down from six sides in 2015 and 2016 to four this year.

While it's reasonable to assume the upset results ensured the WCS would survive another year, no-one from League Central showed up so no talks took place.

Asked if there was any reason to be confident of of the concept's future given the absence of NRL officials, Super League chief executive Nigel Wood answered: "Yeah, there is.

"There were two big clubs here from the NRL, weren't there? We've already had discussions. The NRL value this concept and we've just got to work through the logistics of what to do."

In previous years the NRL – criticised last week by Leeds' Gary Hetherington for being apathetic – sent executives and social media staff to the WCS. Hours after fulltime on Sunday, the League's account had still not Tweeted the result of a world championship-deciding match involving one its teams.

Asked if he was disappointed no-one from the NRL had travelled to Britain, Wood said: "It's always nice to see colleagues from the NRL, who came over only in November for the Four Nations.

"It's not as though we don't know how to get hold of one another."

Some of the doom and gloom surrounding the British game, exacerbated by falling funding and participation rates and England failing to make the Four Nations final, were lifted under leaden skies in unseasonably warm weather at DW Stadium.

Winger Joe Burgess, a failure at Sydney Rooster and qualified success at South Sydney last year, crossed first after four minutes on the back of some of the daring attack favoured  by Warrington the previous evening.

But this was a different game aesthetically; more wrestle, slower play the balls, simmering aggro and Cronulla struggling to adapt to referee Robert Hicks.

The Sharks had two tries disallowed – to Luke Lewis in the seventh minute when a team-mate who was not involved was ruled offside chasing a kick, and to winger Kurt Capewell in the 30th after interminable replays detected a knock-on.

"He probably was offside at the kick, the first one," said coach Shane Flanagan. "Rules are rules.

"Whether the Kurt Capewell one was a try, I don't know. It was touch-and-go."

Balls were thrown over the sideline, passes were fumbled, balls were knocked-on in goal as the NRL champions bumbled their way through their first game in England for 20 years. Burgess scored again in the 23rd minute for a 10-0 halftime lead and centre Oliver Gildart – whose dad played in the 1987 success against Manly – crossed just after halftime for a shock 16-0 lead.

But even with everything going wrong for Shane Flanagan's side, when Raimien crossed 18 minutes into the second half, the Sharks seemed an even money chance – at 16-6 – of pulling the contest out of the fire for their large band of travelling supporters.

"I thought we were coming to get them," said captain Paul Gallen.

Andrew Fifita was a veritable King Kong, doing to giant forwards what Mal Meninga used to to do lightweight wingers – but every time they had the chance to build pressure, they made another mistake.

Burgess put them out of their misery in the final couple of minutes, on the back of a video refereeing call.

"I don't know if they wanted to just beat the traffic on the way home and just award it," said Flanagan, "but it was a bit dodgy."

The debut of Jayden Brailey at hooker was rated a positive by the coach.

Brailey, 20, said: "It was pretty crazy. That crowd, I didn't stop hearing them. It was a bloody intense game."

Flanagan said the "messy" rucks reinforced his opinion that the sport was too hard for one referee to officiate.

WIGAN 22 (J Burgess 3 O Gildart try Escare 3 goals) bt CRONULLA 6 (J Ramien try J Maloney goal) at DW Stadium. Referee: R Hicks. Crowd: 21,011