By Greg Nixon
THE curtain came down on Warrington Wolves’ season with a 38-14 defeat to the Manchester Swinton Lionesses in the semi-final of the Women’s National Championship.
The final scoreline was cruel on a Wire team that was still in the game early in the second half when winger Teneisha Fairbrother’s second try had tied up the scores at 14 apiece.
But, with Australian stand-off Tamika Bull starting to call the shots, the Lionesses ran away with the game in the final half an hour, scoring 24 unanswered points to book their place in the final.
Cheered on by a healthy following at the home of Ince Rose Bridge in Wigan, the Wire started the brightest with some strong defence that put the Lionesses under pressure, forcing Bull to kick the ball out on the full in the second minute.
Emma Dwyer, who was impressive at acting half throughout with her strong running and defence, came close to opening the scoring moments later but was just held up short.
Swinton’s defence held firm in the first 10 minutes and, when ex-Wire Sammy Simpson made a good break from inside her own half, Warrington were pinged for a ball strip close to their own line and Maddie Higson took the two points to edge the home team ahead.
Seconds later, Swinton extended their lead when poor Wire defence allowed Higson to cut through the defence from 60 yards out and score under the posts. She added the extras to push Swinton up to 8-0.
With tempers threatening to boil over in the late summer sunshine, Warrington’s goal line defence stood up superbly against the powerful runs of Yasmin Sotomayer and Amber Harmon.
Wire skipper Megan Bragg and prop Beth Hayes led the counter-attack superbly, supported well by second rower Kayleigh Bradshaw and loose forward Maddie Price, but Shannon Stephens changed the game when she came off the bench with her strong running and clever handling.
After a huge kick from scrum-half Ellie Costello had been fumbled by Swinton winger Chloe Newbigging, Wire were awarded a penalty and Stephens crashed over by the posts.
Hollie Gregory converted to make the score 8-6.
But when Costello was harshly adjudged to be offside in latching onto a Stephens kick close to the Swinton line on the half hour mark, the ball was worked up field and Simpson went over by posts.
Higson stretched the home team’s advantage to 14-6 with the conversion.
Stephens thought she had scored in the dying moments of the half, but referee Joshua Dowse had somehow seen a double movement through the crowd of players on the line.
When Swinton lost the ball on the first tackle of the next set, Fairbrother crossed in the corner to bring Wire back into the game at 14-10.
But once Wire had tied the scores just after half-time, Swinton took control and tries from Kerrie Evans, Bull on 53 and 71, Morgan Pearson and Higson wrestled the game away from the visitors.
