Wolves fail to lift Saints curse

WARRINGTON Wolves once again failed to shake off their St Helens hoodoo on another miserable night at Knowsley Road as they were comprehensively beaten 28-12 by a rampant St Helens side inspired by cast off Matty Smith.
The Salford City bound half-back, recalled from loan due to Saints crippling injury crisis, was a thorn in a Wolves side, who capitulated despite racing into an eight point lead early on.
Now Warrington face an uphill struggle if they are to complete their dream of securing a double on the back of their recent Wembley success and looked a shadow of the side which routed Leeds Rhinos at Wembley.
Even if they bounce back next week and triumph in the next round, they will face another daunting trip to St Helens, still looking for their first win at the jinxed ground in 15 years of Super League.
It had looked so promising early on as Warrington ripped into Saints from the kick off as Lee Briers opened up the home defence twice in eight minutes to send Matt King over in the corner with near duplicate tries.
Crucially Ben Westwood was well wide with both conversion attempts.
Then on 15 minutes it all started to go wrong as Garreth Carvell knocked on in the rain swept conditions. From the resulting scrum Saints had their first spell of real pressure as man of the match Smith kicked against the post and although Paul Wellens over ran the ball, he was still able to get a hand to the ball with a try awarded with the help of the video referee. Youngster Jamies Foster made no mistake with the conversion to make it 6-8 and already doubt started to creep into Warrington minds.
Six minutes later Saints were in front as Kieron Cunningham spun out of two tackles, sold a dummy and powered over in the corner, leaving the Wolves defence bemused. Although Foster was wide with the conversion Saints had a lead they never looked likely to surrender.
The Saints pack took a strangle hold on the game and it was no surprise when James Graham powered over on 35 minutes with Foster’s conversion making it 16-8. Then a minute from the interval he banged over a penalty as David Solomona was penalised for offside to make it 18-8 at the break.
Within a minute of the re-start Westwood gave away another penalty and Foster made no mistake with the conversion, adding another penalty on 49 minutes to make it 22-8.
On 56 minutes Chris Riley failed to collect a high bomb as Paul Wellens off-loaded well to the supporting Chris Flannery. Although Foster was wide with the conversion the game was already in the bag.
Chris Bidge gave Warrington some consolation on 62 minutes when he charged down an attempted clearance to score but then sliced his attempted conversion wide.
Warrington’s frustrations boiled over as Skipper Morley gave away another penalty on 68 minutes as Foster completed the scoring with another conversion.
As the Warrington fans started to file from the ground they left with the taunts of “You’ll never beat St Helens” ringing in their ears.
Warrington will certainly have to do a lot better than this performance if they are ever going to lift the St Helens curse.
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