Warrington Wolves 19

Castleford Tigers 14

A VASTLY improved defence and the wonderful skills of Toa Kohe-Love ensured Warrington kicked off their home Super League season with a win.

After the trouncing at Bradford seven days earlier the Wolves needed to stiffen up their rearguard and it was a good job they did because once again Darryl Van de Velde's side made many errors and dumped unnecessary pressure on themselves.

Centre Toa Kohe-Love's feed to Jason Roach went to ground, at a tap '22 winger Mark Forster knocked on from the first tackle, stand off Scott Wilson gave a wild pass, Jon Roper knocked-on as he tried to stretch out for a try, centre Alan Hunte was tackled into touch after winning a 40-20 scrum - and this was all in the first 24 minutes.

Fortunately for Warrington, Castleford's handling was just as bad and even though it was a frustrating stop-start game it remained interesting to the death due to the closeness of the scores.

Credit is due to Warrington for grinding out the result despite not playing at their potential best. In the league table it shows two wins from two which is four points better off than this time last year.

There was one bright spot from the game. New Zealand centre Kohe-Love again showed off his wonderful array of talents and his two tries were a big influence on the result.

Kohe-Love destroyed his marker, former Warrington centre Mike Eagar, who had a nightmare in trying to contain the Kiwi's side-stepping and paces.

In attack Warrington sought out Kohe-Love as often as they could and it certainly seemed as though something could happen every time he received the ball. With better support from his teammates the Wolves would have come up with more points than they did.

Jon Roper had his best game of the season so far in the unusual berth of full back.

Van de Velde decided not to risk Regular No.1 Lee Penny due to his thumb injury and preferred Roper at the back to Scott Wilson.

It was only Roper's second start at full back for the Wolves, the previous time being against Auckland Warriors in the World Club Championship of 1997. He ran the ball up well and lent his powerful frame to some desperate defence when Cas had Warrington on the rack in the second half.

There were other solid hard-working performances from Jason Roach, Ian Knott and Danny Nutley.

The first try came after 26 minutes when skipper Danny Farrar spotted Eagar out of position and released Kohe-Love to step past prop James Pickering and Eagar from 15 yards. Briers' touchline conversion went wide.

After Mike Wainwright knocked on from the restart and Forster had dropped a gamble pass by Roper, Warrington were under pressure again. Cas swung the ball wide where their captain Adrian Vowles managed to pre-empt Alan Hunte's tackle and sped the ball to Richard Gay to race over on the outside of Forster. Orr goaled from the touchline for a 6-4 lead.

After the restart Tigers' hooker Aaron Raper knocked on. Warrington targeted Eagar's side again and this time Ian Knott dummied to Kohe-Love and went alone to touch down from 15 yards. The wind beat Briers' attempted kick which fell short.

Briers added a drop goal to take Warrington on to 9-6 and then Cas lost their danger man Danny Orr who was helped off the pitch after twisting his knee in a Gary Chambers tackle.

The Tigers regained the lead five minutes after the break through Eagar. Raper's high kick bounced away from Roper and Kohe-Love and sustitute winger Jon Wells put Eagar over. Brad Davis fluffed his goal kick attempt.

Vowles was adjudged to have knocked on a Wolves kick and in the next set of tackles Briers ran across field to pick out Kohe-Love who shimmied and fooled Eagar to cross from close range. Again Briers was wide with the extras.

A good kick chase by Alan Hunte allowed him to tackle full back Jason Flowers over his own try line and force a drop out.

Warrington barged at the line and a great dummy run by prop Nutley took two defenders' attentions and left a gaping hole for Briers to dive over between the sticks. No problem for Briers with the kick this time and it was 19-10.

Three minutes from time a neat handling move down Warrington's narrow side resulted in Davies sprinting clear and crossing from 40 yards.

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