St Helens travel to the Halliwell Jones Stadium to take on under-performing Warrington Wolves

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The 159th league meeting between Warrington Wolves and St.Helens will take place on Thursday at the Halliwell Jones Stadium. However, this is the biggest gap between the sides in years with St. Helen’s in 1st and Warrington struggling to find a win in 8th.

We are halfway through the new Super League season and already things are beginning to take shape, especially for these two sides. St.Helens are sat at the top of the table but fell short two weeks ago in the Challenge Cup Semi-finals against near-neighbours Wigan. Warrington, however, are on the other side, fighting to cement a position in the play-offs.

The last time out between the two teams was on the 11th of March at the Totally Wicked Stadium when the Saints hammered the Warrington outfit 28-2 in front of a bumper crowd 0f over 16,000. Tries from Jack Welsby, Jonny Lomax, Mark Percival and a brace from Tommy Makinson. Since the defeat, Daryl Powell’s side have only won three in their last eight.

St. Helen’s head into the game after a massive win against Hull FC which has suppressed their lead at the top of the table when Wigan lost to Huddersfield the night before. Saints had a very poor first half with the Black and Whites very much on the front foot but soon woke up to win the game by 24-10 with tries from Makinson, Welsby and Lomax.

Warrington however got beat by 40-8 in the South of France by a very good Catalans team. The Wire were in contention to win this game at the interval, they were level with Catalans with it only being 6-6, but from the 60th minute onwards, the french side ran away with it, scoring four tries in 10 minutes to secure a comfortable victory.  Warrington once again have to pick themselves up as the reigning Super League Champions visit the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Thursday night.

Team News:

Warrington Wolves team-news

Warrington welcomes back key-man Gareth Widdop into the side with man-of-the-moment at the minute Josh Thewlis having to spend a couple of weeks on the sideline after picking up an injury in the South of France. Danny Walker will also miss out with a foot injury.

It was also confirmed by Daryl Powell that Josh Charnley will not continue with Warrington at the end of the season. There could also be a senior debut for Latchford Giant amateur prop forward Luke Thomas who is described as the ‘Young James Graham’.

Warrington 21-man squad:

Matty Ashton, Joe Bullock, Daryl Clark, Jason Clark, Mike Cooper, Ben Currie, Matt Davis, Riley Dean, Oliver Holmes, Toby King, Ellis Longstaff, Billy Magoulias, Peter Mata’utia, Robbie Mulhern, Joe Philbin, Stefan Ratchford, Ellis Robson, Luke Thomas, Gareth Widdop, George Williams, Connor Wrench.

St.Helens team-news

St.Helens meanwhile are still without the likes of Lewis Dodd, Will Hopoate and Regan Grace but they still have quality all over the pitch. No doubt young half-back Ben Davies will again start for Saints as he has done an impressive job in the absence of Lewis Dodd.

St Helens team news:

Jack Welsby, Tommy Makinson, Mark Percival, Jonny Lomax, Alex Walmsley, James Roby, Matty Lees, Sione Mata’utia, Joe Batchelor, Morgan Knowles, Joey Lussick, LMS, Curtis Sironen, Agnatius Paasi, Jake Wingfield, James Bell, Josh Simm, Ben Davies, Konrad Hurrell, Dan Norman, Dan Hill.

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