A LEE Briers drop goal secured an unlikely 18-19 victory for Warrington Wolves as they staged a second-half fight back to defeat Huddersfield Giants.
Since taking charge of the team Head Coach Jimmy Lowes has said Warrington will have a roller-coaster season – and again after narrow victories over Bradford and Hull, the Wolves went on a roller coaster ride!
In a woeful first half full of schoolboy errors, the Wolves were fortunate to be only trailing 18-6 at the break.
From the first minute when Chris Riley knocked on allowing Giants full-back Leroy Cudjoe to score from the resulting set of six, Warrington looked out of sorts.
Cudoe went on to complete a first half hat-trick with Warrington’s only response being a Chris Hicks penalty and a Ben Westwood try, with Hicks missing the simplest of conversions.
Cudjoe’s second try came following a comedy of errors as Hicks and Kevin Penny jumped for the same ball, with his third coming just before the break after four missed tackles!
Chris Thorman was on target with the coversions to put the Giants firmly in control at half-time.
Whatever Coach Jimmy Lowes said at half time (and most of it is probably unsuitable for print) Warrington came out a different team in the second half.
On 45 minutes Simon Grix fended off two would-be tacklers to crash over near the posts, with Hicks adding the two and then three minutes later a good off-load from skipper Adrian Morley saw Paul Rauhihi power over from close range. Hicks again converted to level the score.
Warrington then lived a charmed life as the Giants had two efforts ruled out by the video ref.
Then up popped Briers to slice over an angled drop goal seven minutes from time with the Wolves hanging on for a victory.
The big plus apart from the two points was that Warrington kept the Giants off the score sheet in the second half.
After the match Lowes admitted his team had not been good enough but was relieved to come away with the two points.
“We will have to play a lot better than that if we are going to compete in the play-offs,” said Lowes.
