WARRINGTON Wolves slumped to a 25-12 home defeat to Hull KR on Friday night.
Tony Smith’s men trailed 6-0 at the break after a low-scoring first half, and found themselves 18-0 behind on the hour mark, a deficit they never looked like recovering from.
After an end-to-end opening, Wolves should have took the lead on 28 minutes when Trent Waterhouse knocked on with the try line at his mercy.
The former Australia international was then at fault for the opening score of the game, as Travis Burns surged past him down the middle, and found prop Michael Weyman pounding forward on his inside to slide in under the posts.
Warrington scrum-half Richie Myler, who had a hot and cold evening, was somehow denied an equalising score on the stroke of half time, held back from grounding the ball by Graeme Horne when a four-pointer looked certain.
Within a minute of the restart, the home crowd thought they had something to shout about when Kris Keating’s kick was charged down, and Stefan Ratchford ran away with the ball to score a try, only for the referee to call things back for a knock on.
Keating, playing alongside Burns at half-back, was superb for the 60 minutes he was on the field, and it was his pinpoint high kick that created the second try. Substitute Craig Hall proved a distraction for the home defence, who failed to deal with it, enabling Burns to gather and dummy his way through to make it 12-0 after 45 minutes.
Hull KR were growing in belief, and they sought to protect their lead on 56 minutes, as first Keating and then Burns had drop goals charged down.
Both times the tackle count was reset by referee Robert Hicks, and in their third successive set, Hull KR troubled the scoreboard, but in a far more lucrative manner. Burns took on the line and found Keating on his left, and he danced through for a third unanswered try.
Warrington finally got their first points on the evening shortly afterwards, Myler’s long ball sending Ryan Atkins away down the left hand side, and he returned the favour to send the former Salford man over for a try.
Any hopes of a comeback were relatively shortlived, however, as Burns tagged on a 30 metre drop goal to extend Rovers’ advantage to 19-6, but in truth, Warrington didn’t look like a threat to a hard working Rovers defence.
From the kick-off, Warrington did retrieve the kick-off, but saw Rhys Evans have a try chalked off for a forward pass.
Hull KR made sure with 10 minutes to play, Burns going close, and from the resulting play the ball, Josh Hodgson sent Weyman over for a second try.
Although Myler had the last say with his second try of the evening, it was a disappointing night for the home side, who now re-group for the Good Friday visit of Widnes.
For Tony Smith’s post match reaction CLICK HERE
Warrington: Russell, Evans, Bridge, Atkins, J Monaghan, Ratchford, Myler, Hill, M Monaghan, Wood, Waterhouse, Laithwaite, Grix. Interchanges: Harrison, Currie, England, Dwyer.
Hull KR: Cockayne, Gardner, Welham, Salter, Caro, Burns, Keating, Walker, Hodgson, Weyman, Larroyer, Horne, Costigan. Interchanges: Hall, Green, Netherton, Lovegrove.
