A night on which the Betfred Super League celebrated 5,000 matches saw several potential stars of the future come to the fore as Warrington Wolves edged out Leeds Rhinos 16-14 at the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Friday.
Teenage wingers Arron Lindop and Jake Thewlis, both 19, grabbed crucial tries for the hosts to make it back-to-back wins in the league, while 20-year-old forwards Adam Holroyd and Max Wood both made valuable contributions too.
Lindop was award the player of the match prize too and Wolves head coach Sam Burgess could not speak highly enough of the quartet for stepping up, particularly the duo in a reshaped back line which saw Josh Thewlis, Matty Ashton, Toby King and Rodrick Tai absent due to injury.
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“We have a proud heritage since I’ve been here of a fantastic bed of juniors underneath,” Burgess told Sky Sports.
“There are some wonderful players coming through and you’re seeing those now.
“I get a lot of joy out of playing the younger players and seeing them turn them over.”
The win took Warrington, whose other points came from a Stefan Ratchford try and two Marc Sneyd conversions, move into Super League’s top six and above Leeds, who led from the 23rd minute to the 75th.
Ryan Hall, Riley Lumb and James McDonnell all crossed for the visitors, but Jake Connor was only able to kick one conversion and saw another rattle back off the crossbar.
Rhinos head coach Brad Arthur was frustrated by the nine errors his side came up with, including switching off from a goal-line drop-out which the Wolves won back possession from after quickly kicking short.
The yellow card for loose forward Keenan Palasia for a shoulder to the head of Lachlan Fitzgibbon in the second half proved a bone of contention too, as did some of the other infringements his side were pinged for by referee Tom Grant.
“I’ve seen plenty of those five or six rounds in, so maybe as a coach I need to complain more and whinge about the refereeing,” Arthur told Sky Sports.
“We’ve worked really hard on our discipline and we can’t be the least-penalised team in the competition throughout the first five or six games, then come here tonight and get seven penalties in the second half.
“Maybe some of those penalties were warranted against us, but it just seems a lot compared to what we’d given away already.
“We’ll just worry about what we need to improve. We had some ball down on their try-line and made some errors, so we’ll just worry about that.”
Teams
Warrington: Matt Dufty, Jake Thewlis, Stefan Ratchford, Ben Currie, Arron Lindop, George Williams, Marc Sneyd, Zane Musgrove, Danny Walker, Paul Vaughan, Adam Holroyd, Lachlan Fitzgibbon, James Harrison.
Interchange: Sam Powell, Joe Philbin, Max Wood, Luke Yates.
Leeds: Lachlan Miller, Riley Lumb, Harry Newman, Ash Handley, Ryan Hall, Jake Connor, Brodie Croft, Mikolaj Oledzki, Jarrod O’Connor, Cooper Jenkins, James Bentley, James McDonnell, Keenan Palasia.
Interchange: Jack Sinfield, Sam Lisone, Morgan Gannon, Tom Holyroyd.
Referee: Tom Grant.
