IT wasn’t a Magic Weekend for patched up Warrington as they were beaten 24-6 by Leigh at the Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool.
Missing Josh Thewlis, Cai Taylor-Wray, Toby King, George Williams, Luke Yates, Sam Stone, Toff Sipley, Jordan Crowther, Joe Philbin and Arron Lindop, the Wolves were put to the sword by the in-form Leopards, only surviving a nilling through a late Marc Sneyd interception try.
Young Ewan Irwin started at full-back in the absence of Thewlis and Taylor-Wray, with Lachlan Webster on the wing.
It took six minutes for Leigh to open the scoring through controversial centre Tesi Niu, with Adam Cook adding the conversion, and Cook added two more points with a penalty after Sneyd’s drop out went out on the full.
David Armstrong scored Leigh’s second try before Cook added a second penalty to make it 14-0.
Both sides had chances before the break but there were no further scores until six minutes in to the second half, when Edwin Ipape bagged Leigh’s third try, just moments after Irwin had been held up at the other end following a long break.
Already trailing 18-0, Warrington’s hopes of a fightback took a further knock when Sam Powell was sinbinned until the hour mark, and in his absence, Leigh extended their lead through Umyla Hanley.
That put the result beyond doubt, and Leigh looked on course to keep a clean sheet, until Sneyd snared an interception with two minutes to play and went 60 metres unopposed to at least save the Wolves from the embarrassment of being nilled.
Leigh: Armstrong, Hodgson, Niu, Hanley, Senior, Cook, Lam, Ofahengaue, Horne, Mulhern, Halton, Trout, Liu. Subs: Ipape, O’Brien, Davis, Brogan.
Warrington: Irwin, Webster, Smith, Hopoate, Ashton, Hayes, Sneyd, Byrne, Walker, Harrison, Bentley, Tanginoa, Currie. Subs: Powell, Thomas, Wood, Holroyd
