WARRINGTON Wolves’ women’s head coach Ged Ginty has praised his team’s intent and commitment despite going down 30-40 to the Huddersfield Giants at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
And he pointed to the sin-binning of two-try winger Kerrie-Rose Evans for her part in a mass brawl on the hour mark as the turning point.
He said: “That obviously had a big impact on us because we conceded two tries in that 10 minutes and gave us too far of a gap to close.”
“But even in that time, we still kept going and I’m really proud of them. We competed for the full 80 minutes and the girls effort and commitment today was fantastic.”
Ginty’s new look side featured two debutants – centre Gracie Bradshaw and winger Isabelle Malyon – and started with a half-back partnership of Emma Knowles and Hollie Gregory.
And his charges started the game much the brighter, with some probing runs from skipper and hooker Danni Bound and Bradshaw, supported by some terrier-like defence, especially from ex-Giant Hannah Goddard.
However, errors at vital times in the game were punished by the visitors, for whom England full-back Amelia Brown scored a second-half hat-trick.
Goddard opened the scoring in the left-hand corner on seven minutes after the ball was worked through quick hands to the left following another strong run by Bradshaw. Knowles fell agonisingly short with the conversion.
And with Warrington seemingly in control, those mistakes started to creep in and the Giants took full advantage to grab a foothold then take the lead.
First, powerful second rower Emily Downes knocked on at the play the ball and scrum-half Sam Hulme danced through some weak defence to score by the posts, which she converted herself.
When full-back Sydney Alderman-Smith failed to deal with the restart, Lois Naidole took full advantage to push the visitors further ahead. Hulme fell just short with the kick – her only miss of the game from the kicking tee – but just moments later winger Faye Barraclough showed a clean pair of heels to outpace the defence out wide on the left.
Hulme made no mistake this time to take the score to 16-4 for the Giants with just 15 minutes of the game gone.
But, if Lori Halloran’s charges thought Warrington might crumble at this point, they were wrong. The home side showed a grit and determination that seemed to desert them towards the end of last season and they fought their way into the game with Evans getting the first of her brace on 20 minutes, followed by Bounds, who capped of a fine first-half performance by burrowing over from dummy half after Downs had been dragged down just short of the line.
Knowles landed her first conversion of the afternoon.
Evans scored her second on the half hour mark after a kick from Hollie Gregory was fumbled to take Wire into the break leading 18-16.
Despite a strong start to the second half, it was another mistake – this time from Jessica Panayiotou knocking on inside her own 20 – that led to Brown powering through the defence to score her first. Hulme added the extras.
Both sides traded converted tries – Goddard with her second and Brown again – before Evans saw yellow and, with the inspirational Bounds taking a much-deserved rest, the Giants took advantage, first from a long range try from Mollie Iceton from inside her own half and then Brown completing her hat-trick over in the left-hand corner. Hulme’s excellent touchline conversion took the score to 24-40 for the visitors.
There was still time for the Wire to grab perhaps the try of the game with a long-range effort from winger Isabelle Malyon to mark her debut in style. Knowles converted to take the final score to 30-40.
For Ginty, there were lots of positives to take to Leigh next week.
He said: “We played as a team today both in defence and attack. Our shape looked good and we kept putting our body on the line so there are loads of positives to take from today.”
And he had nothing but praise for new signing and Wire’s player of the match Gracie Bradshaw.
He said: “She is such a go-forward player it naturally enabled everybody to have that too. Danni picked up quite a few offloads from her and she gains good yards so the girls follow her.”
And Bradshaw was delighted with her performance after pulling on a Wire shirt for the first time.
She said: “We knew it was going to be tough but we all worked hard. We need to go back to training and work on some of our mistakes and we will be bready for the next game.
“All the girls have been great and we have worked as a team well. I was a bit nervous coming into the game but I think I did well.”
