WARRINGTON Wolves’ miserable Super League campaign is all but over after a 23-10 defeat at lowly Huddersfield Giants.
Any faint hopes of reaching the top six were well and truly extinguished in a dismal second half display that saw the Wolves surrender a 10-6 half-time lead.
Two late tries from George Flanagan secured only Huddersfield’s third win at home all campaign, and followed up their win at the Halliwell Jones Stadium two months ago.
Huddersfield took the lead in a low quality game on 18 minutes when Aidan McGowan squeezed in at the right corner, initially ruled out by the referee but given by his video counterpart.
But the Wolves turned it around in unusual circumstances, Flanagan spilling a kick from deep in his own in goal and enabling Connor Wrench to earn a reward for his eager chase.
They backed that up with an immediate second try as Toby King coasted in down the left.
They lost Lachlan Fitzgibbon to a nasty head injury but the Wolves looked relatively comfortable at 10-6 up.
However, the second half was a largely turgid affair where Warrington offered virtually nothing in attack.
It took until long past the hour mark for anything of note to occur, a bit of quality from Joseph Gagai seeing him cross on the left, though Flanagan missed the conversion to leave the scores tied.
But Warrington had nothing in response and a bit of class from Gagai found Flanagan’s supporting run and Matt Dufty couldn’t keep him out to put the Giants in front with nine minutes to play.
An error gifted them more field position and Ollie Russell’s drop goal virtually put the game beyond Warrington, before Flanagan rubbed salt in the wound ghosting through off a Kieran Rush drop-off pass with the final act.
Huddersfield: Flanagan, McGowan, Bibby, Gagi, Halsall, Rush, Russell, Powell, Woolford, Rogers, Rushton, Greenwood, Cudjoe. Subs: Golding, English, Burgess, Wilson.
Warrington: Dufty, Thewlis, King, Wrench, Thewlis, Sneyd, Williams, Walker, Matterson, Stone, Fitzgibbon, Currie. Subs: Powell, Harrison, Thomas, Holroyd.
