A perfect Autumn day provided one of the parallels for the first team Wigan/ Warrington clash the previous week at Wigan. Once again the Wigan pack outweighed the home team by at least 2 stone a man, but once again, for the most part, Warrington’s committed tackling annulled this advantage in close play. With Hastings, Freeman and Bennett providing a strong front row foundation, the set piece too, provided little advantage for the visitors.

Wigan opened the scoring in the tenth minute when a kick into the Warrington 22 bounced well for the attackers and let them in under the post. 0-7.

Warrington countered immediately. Crisp, timely passing and strong, elusive running from centres Steve Antrobus and Jake Sergeant put winger Harvey Matthews away. The winger’s kick seemed to have earned Warrington a try but the Warrington chaser was judged offside.

It was not until the twenty fifth minute that Warrington opened their account with a close range try from Sam Bennett capitalising on some earlier hard yards by back rower young Andy Kellett. 5-7.

Wigan scored again in the thirtieth minute with Warrington’s eagerness to stem Wigan’s forward drives going beyond legality too often. 5-14 From the restart quick tackling from Luke Turner and swift attention from Kellett earned a penalty, with Wigan holding onto the ball on the ground. Although Warrington lost the subsequent line-out, Warrington regained possession and a mesmerising break by swift-footed stand off Hartill and inside pass to Charlie Hughes gave the scrum-half Warrington’s second try. Hughes also converted. 12-14

Just before the interval centre Antrobus put Warrington into the lead winning the chase for an astute kick put in by fellow centre Sergeant. Another try beckoned when Warrington’s elusive backs put winger Matthews away but the last pass was judged forward.

HT 17-14

Warrington continued to make breaks through their back division but poor distribution and delayed passing undid much of the good work until the fiftieth minute when Sergeant finally went in in the corner, conversion Hughes. 24-14.

With twenty minutes remaining, Wigan pulled one back going in from an uncontested 5 metre scrum. 24-19

Winger Matthews extended Warrington’s lead five minutes later taking an inside pass from Sergeant who had snapped up a well weighted defence splitting kick from Hartill, conversion Hughes 31-19.

In the last ten minutes, however, a combination of unforced errors, unnecessary penalties and some good kicking and chasing from the speedy Wigan full back in particular, earned Wigan two more converted tries and a win.

FT 31-33

This 10 try game was a hugely entertaining exhibition of rugby with the Warrington back division clearly superior but despite the defence-splitting capabilities unforced errors meant too many try scoring opportunities went a begging.

Report by Roy Potts WRUFC