Currie celebrates testimonial with a try in Wolves win but new boy sees red

Photos by Eddie Whitham

WARRINGTON Wolves returned to action with a 22-10 win over newly-promoted Leigh Leopards in Ben Currie’s testimonial.

A crowd of 5,512 turned up to the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Saturday night to witness Currie score a try and scoop the man of the match award.

Currie has made 229 appearances for the club since making his debut in 2012 and has retained the number 11 shirt for his 12th season at the club.

It was far from plain sailing for Daryl Powell’s side on the field, as they twice trailed to the Super League new boys.

Powell hinted at his strongest side with his starting line-up, which included new signings Matty Russell, Josh Drinkwater, Gil Dudson, Paul Vaughan and Josh McGuire.

The game, certainly in the first half, was played at an intensity higher than expected from a pre-season friendly, with the visitors spurred on by a vocal away support.

Leigh started with five former Warrington players in their line-up and one of those got the scoring underway on 13 minutes, when an overlap was created on the left for Josh Charnley to go in at the left corner.

Stefan Ratchford converted his own try midway through the first half to nudge the Wolves ahead at 6-4, but they went in at half-time behind.

The try came with the last play of the first half, with Tom Nisbet taking Ricky Leutele’s drop off pass and racing through a gap in the Wolves defence and finding former Wire Gareth O’Brien on his shoulder to score.

Daryl Clark squared things up at 10-10 on 53 minutes, before a Currie offload sent George Williams racing away down the left. He found support on his inside and although Zak Hardaker made a superb covering tackle at full-back, the Wolves attack was queuing up on the right hand side and Peter Mata’utia was the eventual beneficiary as he crossed for a try that he converted himself.

Leigh tired as the game went on and Currie got the perfect moment for his testimonial as he surged on to a wide ball left and weaved in and out to score behind the posts and seal the win.

The only negative for the Wolves was a mysterious red card issued to new signing McGuire in the aftermath of that try, with suggestions it was for comments he made toward referee Marcus Griffiths.

Warrington will now face an anxious wait to see if that results in a suspension with their Super League opener against Leeds less than two weeks away. Next Friday’s friendly against North Wales would count towards the ban.

Warrington: Dufty, Russell, Mata’utia, Ratchford, Ashton, Williams, Drinkwater, Dudson, Walker, Vaughan, Nicholson, Currie, McGuire. Subs: Thewlis, Harrison, Clark, Kasiano, Mikaele, Minikin.

Leigh: Hardaker, Hanley, Chamberlain, Leutele, Charnley, Lam, O’Brien, Amone, Davis, Mulhern, Wardle, Holmes, Asiata. Subs: O’Donnell, Hughes, Reynolds, Briscoe, Smith, Gannon, Nisbet, Jones, Ipape.