Report: Wakefield 32-34 Warrington

Aaaaaaaaaaand breathe. Warrington somehow survived a ferocious fightback from Wakefield Trinity to take a narrow victory at the Mobile Rocket Stadium and make it six wins out of seven to start the season. Here's my match report from a crazy night in West Yorkshire...


There was just one change to the starting lineup from last week's win over Wigan, with Joe Philbin starting his first game of the season as he replaced the suspended Ben Westwood, who sat out the first of his four games on the sidelines as punishment for his headbutt on Morgan Escare. Philbin was a surprise selection at loose forward, with most expecting that it would be between Lama Tasi and Jason Clark for that spot, but both were named only on the interchange bench. The only personnel change to the matchday squad was Danny Walker, who had a place among the subs. Wakefield were without star duo Tom Johnstone and Bill Tupou but included former Wire George King in their interchanges, as he prepared to face brother Toby for the first time in his career. On another note, it was great to see Westwood, Kevin Brown, Harvey Livett and Tom Lineham in the away end among the fans, as they continue to miss games through suspension, injury and omission.

Warrington made a brilliant start to the game and were ahead after just four minutes when an accurate lofted kick from Declan Patton found the willing recipient of Toby King, who touched down with ease to score his first try of 2019 and give the Wire the lead. Stefan Ratchford converted King's try and five minutes later Steve Price's side were in again when a sequence of fast passes, starting with Daryl Clark, went through Ratchford, Jack Hughes and King before the scorer turned assister as he played to Josh Charnley for the winger to score his sixth try of the season as he dived over one-handed. A superb kick from Ratchford out wide made it 12-0 after just nine minutes, and the lead would be extended less than five minutes later when a Daryl Clark pass from dummy half set Chris Hill up to drive through the Wakefield defence from ten metres out and score, bagging his maiden try of the season. This time it was an easy kick for Ratchford and the lead was up to 18 and the result looked beyond doubt. On 16 minutes, Patton produced a scintillating pass to take three Trinity defenders out of the picture and allow Jake Mamo to touch down in the corner. Mamo's joy was short-lived though, with the video referee ruling the try out for an alleged obstruction - an absolutely dreadful and nonsensical decision which rightly left the team and the fans feeling aggrieved.

The score would've been 22-0 but for that shocking decision, but rather than the commanding lead that the Wire should've had, Wakefield were back in the game two minutes later when Ryan Hampshire collected a Danny Brough pass and slotted home after Mamo had slipped. Brough converted the try which meant the gap was 12 points, rather than 22. The away side reasserted their authority on the game with one of the best tries we've scored this season. A glorious offload from Mike Cooper, who had a superb game, found Daryl Clark, who handed the ball to his namesake Jason, before Ben Currie played a rapid pass to Blake Austin, who majestically slid his way over the line unchallenged under the posts for his third of the season. Ratchford was given the simple task of converting Wire's splendid try, and the lead was back up to 18 points with ten minutes until the interval. A relentless break from Jack Hughes earned Warrington a penalty, and with just seconds left before the break, Stefan Ratchford wisely chose to take a shot at goal, which he succeeded with. Ratchford's fifth conversion out of five made the score 26-6 right on the half-time hooter, concluding a wonderful 40 minutes of rugby league from the Wire.

The second half started well too, with Ryan Atkins, who had his best game for Warrington in recent memory, broke free of a tackle and went on a barnstorming run, which eventually resulted in a penalty, and once again Ratchford elected to shoot at goal, and his sixth accurate conversion in a row meant that the scores were 28-6. Seven minutes later, Jake Mamo looked to have made up for his first half misfortune when he marvellously touched down a deflected Ben Currie kick. Once again, Mamo was prevented from continuing his scoring streak by the video referee, who bizarrely ruled the try out for an offside. Wakefield scored their second try through David Fifita, the prop forward fighting through the flimsy challenges of Ratchford and Hill, while Murdoch-Masila was also unable to hold him off. Brough's conversion reduced Wakefield's arrears to 16, scoring for the second time straight after a highly dubious decision to rule out a Wire try. Blake Austin produced a moment of genius when he dummied a pass wide and shimmied past Justin Horo's tackle, before evading two more and playing a perfect pass out wide to Charnley, who slammed down in the corner for his second of the night, and seventh of the season, making him the league's joint-top scorer.

The Wire lead was 24 points with a quarter of the game left, and attention turned to the chance to go top of the league on points difference, with St Helens having a greater record by 26 at the start of the night. These thoughts were soon dismissed when the Wakefield comeback began with a try from Kyle Wood, who evaded Stefan Ratchford to score. Wood scored again a minute later when getting onto the end of his own kick to score a fortuitous but clever try. A pair of conversions left the score at 34-22 in Warrington's favour with 15 minutes to play. Nerves seemed to be getting to the Wire as Mamo knocked on when he looked certain to score. Rather than playing out wide, the correct decision would've been to go for a drop goal to extend the lead to 13 points, rather than going for a risky try.

Wakefield set up an incredibly nervy finish when Max Jowitt overcame the tackle of Toby King and scored in the corner. A good Brough conversion meant that Wire's lead was just six points with four minutes left. Sixty seconds later, all our fears became a reality when Joe Arundel scored. Danny Brough was presented with a chance to level the scores, but mercifully missed his conversion. Warrington gave away a series of cheap penalties which gave Wakefield a great chance to win. With half a minute remaining, Ratchford fumbled a high kick, the rarest of players to make such an error at such a time. The scrum found Fifita, who kicked to the in-goal area to set up Hampshire, but Charnley was alive to the danger and cleared the ball as the final hooter sounded, confirming the two points for Steve Price's team.

A breathless finish which got the hearts of everyone in the away end racing. Nevertheless, this was a big victory for Warrington which we had to fight and cling on for. For pretty much all of the first half and a portion of the second half, we were first-rate in terms of application and quality, particularly in terms of the offloads, kicking game and clean breaks. Some of our play was tremendous and for large parts of the game we were a class above a good Wakefield side. This was easily Chris Hill, Declan Patton and Ryan Atkins' best games of the season, and Toby King is really starting to come into form as well. The interchanges of Ben Murdoch-Masila and Jason Clark had a good effect on the game, while the outstanding performances of Daryl Clark, Mike Cooper and Blake Austin provided the spark that was needed, along with clinical finishing from Josh Charnley. Stefan Ratchford's goal-kicking has improved to no end in the last few games, and ended up being the deciding factor in this win. Make sure to have a look at my player rankings from the game to see who I thought were the stars of this win and check back for the build-up to next Friday's clash with Hull FC.

The concerns are that we didn't see out the game like we should've done after being in such a commanding position, though it has to be mentioned that with an extra two tries (or even just one) which were incorrectly chalked off, the scoreline would've been even more comfortable. A mixture of diabolical refereeing and poor game-management once Daryl Clark left the field to be rested combined to make the final stages very nervy, but in truth, we deserved the win for the class we showed in the first sixty minutes - which was probably up until that point our best performance of the season so far. Wakefield is always a tough place to go and it must be remembered that St Helens only won very late on at the Mobile Rocket Stadium, and certainly didn't produce the quality that we did at times in the game. Six wins from the first seven, things are looking good. And we will get better.

It's always our year.

Daniel (@ALooseWire)