Super League playoffs: Warrington Wolves survive a scare against Widnes Vikings
Last Updated: 21/09/14 9:52am
Joel Monaghan scored a hat-trick as Warrington battled back from an 18-0 deficit to beat Widnes 22-19 and keep their hopes alive of a third successive Grand Final appearance.
Widnes led 18-0 after 30 minutes and 19-6 at the half, but the Wolves eventually proved the stronger side in a superb elimination playoff at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
Warrington's reward is a trip to face Castleford on Thursday.
The one downside for Tony Smith's team was what looked a serious injury to full back Matty Russell who was stretchered from the field following a second-half collision with Macgraff Leuluai.
Kevin Brown, who earned selection in the Super League Dream Team for the first time this week, created all three Widnes tries in a dominant first half first for the Vikings.
Paddy Flynn claimed two tries for the visitors and Rhys Hanbury also touched down, with Danny Tickle landing three goals and Brown a drop-goal as they led 19-6 at half time but failed to add to their score in the second period.
Widnes, making their first appearance in the play-offs after finishing eighth in the Super League table, made the perfect start as they stunned the Wolves with two almost identical tries in the opening nine minutes.
The Vikings took full advantage when Warrington were penalised for obstruction in the opening stages and that allowed the visitors to set up the position from which Brown put in an inch perfect kick and Flynn just managed to touch down.
And Widnes repeated the dose four minutes later when it was Brown again whose perfectly placed kick over the Wolves line allowed Flynn to just beat Evans to the touch.
Tickle kicked two excellent touchline conversions to give Widnes a 12-0 lead.
Impressive
It got even better for the Vikings after half an hour when the impressive Brown sent Hanbury racing clear and he evaded the attemped tackle of Russell to score. Tickle again converted to make it 18-0.
On one of their rare forays into Widnes territory the Wolves posted their first points four minutes before half time when some crisp passing from Richie Myler and Chris Bridge allowed Monaghan to touch down in the corner.
Stefan Ratchford landed his conversion attempt from the touchline to cut the Widnes lead to 18-6.
But two minutes before half time the influential Brown cooly added a drop goal to give his side a 19-6 lead at half time.
Warrington claimed their second try of the game three minutes after the restart when a superb pass out of the tackle by Chris Bridge allowed Monaghan to claim his second try of the game and Ratchford again landed an excellent touchline conversion to make it 19-12.
And five minutes later Warrington scored again when Rhys Evans crossed in the corner and cut the deficit to three points at 19-16.
The Wolves hit the front on 56 minutes when a break down the right by Bridge released Monaghan to claim his hat-trick and Ratchford was once again on target with the conversion to make it 22-19.
