St Helens sneak past the Warrington Wolves

St Helens beat Warrington in a thriller at the Halliwell Jones.

Round 13 in the Betfred Super League saw the struggling Warrington Wolves welcome league leaders and reigning champions, St Helens, to the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Thursday night, in a game the Wolves needed to win in order to boost their play-off hopes.

Following a disappointing defeat in the Challenge Cup Semi-finals against near-neighbours Wigan Warriors, Kristian Woolf’s side turned their focus to finishing at the top of the league table come the end of the regular season. But it was the Wolves who opened the scoring.

A superb break down Wires’ right-hand side saw Peter Mata’utia send Connor Wrench away with a brilliant miss-out pass, the winger raced clear before feeding Gareth Widdop in support who avoided the oncoming defender to score.

Having got a foothold in the game after a nervous start, Daryl Powell’s side shot themselves in the foot conceding a horrendous try from a Wolves perspective. The hosts had a scrum 10 metres from their own line which Saints unexpectedly decided to push. The ball fell kindly at the feet of Alex Walmsley who scored the easiest of tries to give Saints the lead.

Handling errors and penalties began to take over the remaining minutes of the first half before Saints extended their lead in the dying moments of the half. A high kick was knocked back by LMS to Jonny Lomax who found Agnatius Paasi, the forward produced a wonderful crossfield pass which saw Tommy Makinson dive over in the corner to send the league leaders into the break with a 12-4 lead.

Warrington were forced to step up in defence at the start of the second half as St Helens forced back-to-back sets. As Wire looked to attack themselves Konrad Hurrel intercepted Ratchford’s pass to run clear but as the try line beckoned the speedster Matty Ashton produced a wonderful tackle to stop a certain try.

And what a big tackle it proved to be! Just moments later Widdop caught Saints long kick downfield on the full and found the gap in a tiring defence to run downfield, before finding George Williams on his outside who reduced the deficit to two.

In the final 10 minutes, Warrington and Saints went set for set as the Wolves tried to take the lead, but on a number of occasions, the pass was just too far in front of the Wolves player.

In the last minute of the game, a crossfield kick found Connor Wrench inside his own 20 metres, the winger handed off one Saints defender before showing his speed to beat another. As the entire stadium thought the winger was going to win the game for Warrington, up stepped Tommy Makinson with a brilliant tackle to secure the two points for Saints. A much-improved performance from Daryl Powell’s side saw Warrington leave the field to a big round of applause from the home fans.

Both teams will have a week off next week with the Challenge Cup Final taking centre stage.

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