By Greg Nixon
A last-gasp try from Hollie Brussels earned Warrington Wolves’ women a hard-fought 22-18 victory against Sheffield Eagles at the Asics Stadium.
The young centre’s score by the posts – which was converted by Michelle Davis – capped a remarkable comeback for the Wire, who were 18-10 down with just moments to go.
The ever-impressive Shannon Stevens sparked the comeback, crashing over on 72 minutes to bring the score back to 18-16 after the home side had kept the Eagles out with some impressive goal line defence for most of the second half.
The visitors will feel hard done by not having come away from Victoria Park with the points, but they made too many errors when in possession to hammer home their advantage.
Wire’s tackling was – at times – magnificent against a mobile pack, holding their forwards up over the line on at least five occasions as Sheffield failed to make their dominance in the second half pay.
Hooker Danny Bound’s return to the pitch in the last 15 minutes sparked the Warrington comeback, her clever play from dummy half opening up room for the likes of forwards Bethany Hayes, Megan Condliffe, Kayleigh Bradshaw and Stevens to exploit.
Shannon Stevens celebrating her try
Wire had opened the scoring in the 25th minute when Cailey Miller capitalised on an Eagles knock on to show an impressive turn of pace to outrun the defence and score form 60 yards out. Davis goaled to give Wire a 6-0 lead.
Up to that point, the game had been littered with handling errors and poor discipline from both sides. Taneisha Fairbrother thought she had broken the deadlock on 15 minutes when she intercepted the ball and had a clear run to the line, but the referee had already blown for an Eagles’ forward pass and called her back.
Moments after Miller’s opener, Stevens could have stretched the Wire’s lead but dropped the ball with the line begging.
That let off seemed to inspire the Eagles, with scrum half Fran Townend and full back Kay-Leigh West starting to pull the strings in midfield, aided by strong running of Capucine Auger and Favour Irimagha.
And with just moments left to half time, the Wire defence finally cracked when Irimagha was held up over the line only for Auger to cross from close range at the resulting play the ball. Townend converted to tie up the scores at the break.
The home side started the second half well, despite losing second rower Libby Clarke and centre Kaitlin Hilton to injury in the first 40. Beth Hayes continued her impressive season by taking the ball in on an angled run to put Warrington back in front on 43 minutes. Davis was unable to convert.
This was the signal for Eagles to mount a comeback of their own, with T’leesha Frederick-Maynard crashing over by the side of the posts just minutes later. Townend added the extras to give Eagles the lead for the first time in the game.
That lead was extended on the hour mark when centre Bethany Lambert received a ball that at best could be called flat from Auger to race over the line. Townend added the extras to push the Eagles into an 18-10 lead which seemed secure until the last few minutes.
Warrington Wolves head coach Lee Weswood said: “It was a tough game but there were a lot of errors from both sides.
“I said at half time that the team that completes better in the second half will come out on top and that’s exactly what happened.
“The pleasing thing for us as a team is we stuck in there but there is lots of things to work on for next week.
“The players showed a lot of resilience in that last five minutes. We only had the ball in their half three times in the last 15 minutes so to come away with two tries out of that was really pleasing.
“We could have quite easily downed tools and let them run away with the game, but we stuck in there and managed to get the win.”
