WARRINGTON Wolves moved up to second in the Super League table, for 24 hours at least, with a 30-18 win over Leeds Rhinos.
After last week’s demolition of Huddersfield Giants, it was another solid display by the Wolves ahead of the mouth-watering trip to St Helens next week.
Playing in front of newly-appointed coach Brad Arthur, the start could hardly have gone worse for Leeds as Warrington scored inside two minutes through Matty Ashton.
By five minutes it was 12-0, Danny Walker bursting through the middle and finding Matt Dufty on his inside shoulder to race away under the posts.
Leeds pulled a try back through David Fusitu’a but two more quickfire tries put Warrington well in control by half time.
Dufty added his second try before his kick fell for Rodrick Tai in the corner, with Stefan Ratchford maintaining his 100% record with the boot to make it 24-4 at the break.
The evening wasn’t perhaps as comfortable as it might have been as Warrington allowed Leeds a route back in to the match in the opening exchanges of the second half.
Lachlan Miller scored a converted try shortly before George Williams was sinbinned for a high tackle on Andy Ackers.
With Warrington down to 12, Leeds added another score through youngster Ned McCormack and all of a sudden the score was 24-14.
But Tom Whitehead’s first Super League try bang on the hour mark, crashing under the posts under the attention of several defenders and awarded after a video referee consultation that never really confirmed whether he did get it down, relaxed the Wolves once more.
Warrington did lose a second man to a sin-bin, Ashton shown the yellow card for holding down Sam Lisone, but with only four minutes to go, it was too little too late to have any impact for the visitors.
They did get a fourth try, through Paul Momirovski, but the win was Warrington’s.
Warrington: Dufty, Lindop, Tai, Ratchford, Ashton, Williams, Drinkwater, Harrison, Walker, Vaughan, Nicholson, Holroyd, Currie. Subs: Musgrove, Crowther, Powell, Whitehead.
Leeds: Miller, Fusitu’a, Momirovski, McCormack, Handley, Croft, Sinfield, Oledzki, O’Connor, Eseh, McDonnell, Martin, Smith. Subs: Ackers, Lisone, Goudemand, Edgell.
