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Rampant Warrington Wolves take top spot off Wigan Warriors

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By on  SPORT, Wolves News

A rampant Warrington Wolves clinically punished Super League leaders Wigan Warriors to take top spot from their rivals with a 40-4 victory at the Brick Community Stadium.

Wolves went level with the Warriors on 28 points, as did Hull KR after beating London Broncos, but the margin of victory edged them ahead on points difference and dropped the defending champions to third, although they have a match in hand.

Wigan’s 17-match unbeaten home run stretched back to May last year but the statistics showed when they are without reigning Man of Steel Bevan French, sidelined for two months with a torn hamstring, their win percentage drops from 77 to 57.

In his recent absence they have beaten St Helens, lost to Hull – their first defeat since April – and now gone down to Warrington as they suffered back-to-back defeats for the first time in 13 months.

Wire head coach Sam Burgess, whose side had lost their two previous matches to Wigan, including last month’s Challenge Cup final, admitted in his pre-match interview this was the biggest game of the season so far.
And his team showed they were out for revenge from the kick-off as a knock-on by Liam Byrne gifted Warrington Wolves possession.
The visitors did not need a second invitation to seize the initiative with Matt Dufty’s low kick pounced on Arron Lindop to touch down inside the opening two minutes.

Another error saw Sam Walters drop the ball in a tackle with the Warrington line in sight before the hosts finally found some cohesion in the 13th minute when Harry Smith’s chip to the corner picked out Liam Marshall.
The wing touched down for his 26th try of the season in all competitions, equalling his previous best scoring season of 2017 and bringing up 600 points in his Warriors’ career. However, Smith pulled the conversion wide.
Wigan’s failure to deal with Ben Currie’s kick put the visitors in the danger area again and Sam Powell, Josh Drinkwater and George Williams combined to send Adam Holroyd over. Josh Thewlis converted to give the visitors a two-score lead.

And the Wigan mistakes showed no signs of disappearing as just past the half-hour Jack Farrimond’s errant pass was intercepted by Matty Ashton 10 metres from Warrington’s own try line and he raced away to give the visitors an 18-4 lead.
Any hopes of a Wigan fightback were extinguished less than four minutes into the second half with the try of the game as Lindop added his second, collecting the ball 20 metres out, shrugging off Abbas Miski’s tackle and skipping past a couple more challenges as he burst through.
Wigan’s terrible night was compounded when hooker Brad O’Neill, under no pressure, went down clutching his right knee and had to be helped off before Ashton touched down to take the visitors top of the table.
Thewlis’ interception to run the length of the field sent home fans heading for the exit and even Dufty’s late sin-binning made no difference as Rodrick Tai scored a seventh Wolves try with the last play of the game.

After the match Warrington Wolves’ head coach Sam Burgess refused to get carried away with his side’s 40-4 demolition of Wigan at the Brick Community Stadium.
Wolves went top of Super League, boasting a superior points difference over Wigan and Hull KR, after inflicting Warriors’ first home defeat since May last year and their first back-to-back defeats in 13 months.
“It’s a good night, it was a good win for us. I wouldn’t say it was special,” Burgess said.
“It’s nice to get the win of course but we’re not going to get carried away with ourselves.
“We understand they had a couple of guys out who are key to their game so I accept that but I thought we were really disciplined to stay at our game plan.
“I’m more pleased about that than anything else. I think it was a step forward in our game management today.
“The job is simple in so many ways, you can overcomplicate it. They just got the job done. On the ball they did their all, they ran hard.
“Wigan were physical tonight, they controlled us quite a bit in the first half with some field position and Harry Smith is a great kicker.
“They put is in some bad spots so we had to take our medicine but I was pleased they stuck at it for the whole game and I thought it was a big improvement for us.”

Wigan’s injury woes increased after hooker Brad O’Neill, under no pressure, went down clutching his right knee midway through the second half and had to be helped from the field.
They were already facing up to the prospect of having reigning Man of Steel Bevan French out for two months with a torn hamstring.
“It’s too early to say (about O’Neill) but whenever you see those ones you worry about it,” said Warriors head coach Matt Peet.
The hosts contributed to their own downfall with a performance littered with errors but Peet said Warrington put them under pressure from the start.
“I think it is good contact from Warrington, good defence on the edges to get the interceptions so credit where credit is due,” he added.
“It’s a tough one to take. The scoreline doesn’t look good and there were aspects of our performance that certainly don’t look good.
“Credit to Warrington, they executed much better than we did.”


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