First half horror show costs Wolves!

WARRINGTON Wolves paid the penalty for a

first half horror show as they were well beaten 16-28 by St Helens in

front of a record breaking sell out 15,000 crowd at the Halliwell Jones

Stadium.
St Helens capitalised on some woeful Wolves handling to rack up more than a point a minute in the opening quarter as they raced into a 22-0 lead.
It took just two minutes for winger Ade Gardiner to cross in the corner as Warrington struggled to gain any kind of meaningful possession. Jonny Lomax added a towering conversion from the touchline to make it 6-0 for the visitors.
Things went from bad to worse for the Wolves on 10 minutes as St Helens punished more mistakes with Paul Wellens diving over the line and Lomax again on target. Fine minutes later the Wolves again lost the ball as Paul Wood surrendered possession allowing another sweeping Saints move to be finished off by Wellens for his second try. Lomax was again on target to make it 0-18.
Then on 24 minutes a rare Warrington attack ended as Riley lost the ball allowing Gardiner to start another sweeping Saints move, this time finished off by Francis Meli in the far corner. Lomax couldn’t add the extras on this occasion.
Warrington eventually started to get into the game and were rewarded two minutes from the break as Brett Hodgson took a neat pass from Lee Briers to score wide out and then keep his cool to add the conversion to make it 6-22 at the break.
From the re-start Garreth Carvell did his best to gift St Helens another try, off loading under his own sticks but fortunately for the Wolves JonWilkin was ruled to have knocked on in the process of touching down, to spare Carvell’s blushes.
Warrington got another let off from the video referee at the start of the second half and then promptly went up field to score as Hodgson slipped a pass out for Joel Monaghan to dive in at the corner. But Monaghan couldn’t add the extras from wide out to make it 10-22.
With the lead pegged back to just two converted tries Warrington pushed to claw their way back into the game but couldn’t find a way through some solid St Helens tackling.
Then after soaking up plenty of pressure Saints struck with the killer try on 67 minutes as Sia Soliola forced his way over with Lomax adding the conversion to make it 10-28 and game over.
Ryan Atkins scored a last minute consolation for the Wolves with probably the best try of the game as he chipped over the defence and then out paced the cover to score a great try, with Hodgson adding the extras – but it was too little too late as the Wolves crashed to their first home defeat of the season.