BACK IN THE HUNTE AND

St. Helens 58

Warrington Wolves 18

WARRINGTON Wolves came crashing back down to earth at Knowsley Road on Sunday.

Three successive Wolves wins were knocked for six as they conceded what is becoming an unacceptable but customary cricket score at Saints' ground.

The Wolves were beaten 50-20 there last month and have now conceded no less than 50 points at Knowsley Road in their last five league visits.

The ghosts came back to haunt the Wolves in another department too. Warrington's problem all year has been consistency over 80 minutes but they had appeared to have jumped that hurdle in the previous wins against Castleford, Salford and Hull.

However, on Sunday, Warrington were in the running at 16-12 behind with 48 minutes on the clock but then conceded 42 points in the final 34 minutes.

The Wolves, who had three players sin-binned to Saints' one during the game, were only a shadow of the side which defeated Hull seven days earlier and had few good performers.

Andrew Gee was possibly the most solid of the players, while his skipper Allan Langer tried hard but a couple of elementary mistakes marred his display.

Against his former club Alan Hunte scored only his second try in 11 matches but there were few other highlights.

Warrington had some bright moments in the opening half but spoilt their game with the possession they gifted to Saints.

Langer twice made basic errors on the first tackle and Lee Briers failed to find touch with a penalty kick.

The result was that the Wolves were under pressure and tackling for long periods.

Saints opened the scoring after Langer's first offence, running around Lee Penny from a scrum in an obstruction move. Saints made yards, stretched the Wolves and Apollo Perelini off-loaded out of Langer's tackle for Tommy Martyn to cross. Long goaled.

Warrington sought a way back and Langer made amends for his earlier mishap by dummying Fereti Tuilagi and angling a 15m run to the line. Briers' conversion levelled matters.

As the Wolves got on top Langer looked to send Ian Knott over, but the pass was ruled forward.

Against the run of play, Martyn sold a dummy to Mark Hilton to touch down his second try and Long made it 12-6 with his boot.

Saints stepped up a gear and Wolves survived as Kevin Iro crossed only for Tuilagi to be penalised for earlier obstructing Hunte in the build up.

Briers failed to find the mark with the penalty to touch and Saints launched into attack mode again. Pressure heightened on the Wolves as Hunte was sin-binned for interference at a play-the-ball.

Saints spread the ball wide with a long Paul Sculthorpe pass, which Anthony Sullivan steamed on to and was handed enough room by Will Cowell to squeeze into the corner. Long's extras made it 16-6 at half-time.

Warrington's luck changed at the start of the second half when Saints' prop Julian O'Neill was yellow-carded for interference.

Hunte crossed for a 50m interception try in O'Neill's absence but the Warrington players must have thought their work was done because Saints then scored twice while down to 12 men.

Firstly, Martyn stepped past Farrar to complete his hat-trick and then Vila Matautia, lining up as stand off at a scrum, put Paul Wellens through a large hole and it was suddenly 28-12.

Two minutes later Keiron Cunningham and Sculthorpe cut Warrington to bits down the right for Iro to finish off from 40m.

Gee was next in the bin for interference and from the tap penalty Cunningham crashed through weak defence to make it four tries in nine minutes.

Saints' substitute Dwayne West intercepted a lame Jerome Guisset pass before Busby touched down a Briers grubber kick for the Wolves.

Full back Lee Penny was put on report for a challenge on Chris Joynt and Tawera Nikau was Warrington's third player sent to the bin for play-the-ball infringements.

Forwards John Stankevitch and Sculthorpe added late tries.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.